Bank CEOs need to be accountable

Vernos Branco, Las Vegas

Sunday, July 22, 2012 | 2 a.m.

What can you afford when the banks ask for another bailout? So far, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lost $5.8 billion, possibly more, trading in shady derivatives. Drug cartel money was laundered through Bank of America. Barclays Bank officials admitted to manipulating interest rates in bank-to-bank loans over several years. The Charles Schwab Corp. filed a lawsuit against several banks involved in the loan rate scandal, including Bank of America, Credit Suisse Group, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC Holdings, Barclays Bank, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. Goldman Sachs reportedly cooked the books in Greece to hide the huge debt that country held. Capital One was recently fined for deceptive marketing practices and will refund $140 million to its customers.

All of these banks were, in one way or another, responsible for the crushing economic collapse we experienced in September 2008.

Why are the CEOs and managers of these organizations still free to wander our streets or continue working at these banks? They are criminals, and if any one of us had done anything remotely similar, we would be jailed in a heart beat.

Too big to fail is bigger than ever, and if these people are allowed to avoid accountability for their actions, they will bring us to the brink of economic doom again. It’s the nature of the beast due to unbound greed, and we, the average American citizen, will be forced to bail them out.