Seth Saves the World: Take that, bankers! (sorta)

By Seth Richardson

OMG guys guess what? We’re finally going to see some justice against the big banks! Those evil-doers are going to get their comeuppance for destroying the financial climate of the world and see some serious fines plus jail time.

That’s right. Bank of America, Citigroup and Chase, we’re coming after you. We are a vigilant nation and will not stand down while you robber barons take and take like a parasite feeding off society. We will not rest until … wait, hold on.

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My bad guys. Turns out we’re only charging Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas for skirting economic sanctions with Iraq and helping clients avoid U.S. taxes.

But hey, it’s a start, right? I mean we’ll eventually move up to charging the big banks. This is just a test run. Like the original iPod is to the newer iPod touches.

Well, those guys must be worse. Let’s take BNP Paribas. They were defying the economic sanctions against Iran. IRAN! We all know the effect Iran has on the United States is way worse than the catastrophic meltdown of the global financial system.

They earned these new criminal charges. Scumbags.

And how about Credit Suisse? Those jerks helped clients avoid U.S. taxes, which is the equivalent of punching America’s mother in the face.

Unless you’re Citigroup, who in 2013 hadn’t paid taxes in FOUR YEARS.

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Or Bank of America who didn’t pay any income tax in 2009 or 2010.

Or Chase who stashes money in 83 offshore tax havens to avoid paying $4.9 billion in taxes.

But these are AMERICAN institutions. And what’s more AMERICAN than keeping every cent you own from the government?

Plus, those CEOs already did their damage and charging them would just bring up old feelings of hatred towards bankers. And we wouldn’t want to marginalize bankers the way we have African-Americans, Italians, Asians, Irish, Polish, Latinos, Socialists, Communists, Hippies, gays, lesbians, transsexuals, transgenders, women, Catholics, Jews, Muslims or anyone else.

We learned those first hundred times that if you marginalize a group like rich, white bankers, soon they will fall behind and live in squalor and prejudice.

If we fine them real amounts instead of the 1/100th they are normally fined, how will they be able to afford heating their massive homes or dining on beluga caviar?

So heed this lesson. We need to stop trying to charge wealthy bankers for crimes they actually committed and go back to doing what we do best: putting minorities in jail at an indiscriminate rate.

Seth Richardson can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @EgyptianRich or by phone at 536-3311 ext. 255.

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