Fined but still fine

$16 billion is how much JPMorgan Chase has paid in fines, settlements and other litigation expenses in the last four years alone. More than half of that amount, $8.5 billion, was paid out in fines and settlements as the result of illegal actions taken by bank executives which is almost 12 percent of the net income the mega-bank brought in during the same period. The bank executives who committed those crimes haven't paid a penny in restitution, nor have they been charged with crimes. Those fines have been paid by the bank's shareholders, who in some cases were the victims of the very crimes that led to the fine in the first place! Life is still good for Dimon and some of the other senior executives at JPMorgan Chase: Shareholders can't fire them and risk a drop in stock value. The government won't prosecute them in case the knock-on effect undermines other financial institutions. The global financial octopus is squeezing the life out of society and making the world pay the price for its profits.
Are the banks the only corporate criminals getting away with it? Are the energy industries innocent? Big Pharma? The agriculture and food businesses? The mining companies? All are guilty.
We have no choice but to destroy them utterly as a class. One day the have-nots will wake up to the reality of the world and dispossess the haves.