Personal Accountability !

In 2008 the world had a recession.  One of the causes was the money market using the housing price boom to enrich profits.  Mortgages were approved at near the sale price of the home and often to buyers who clearly lacked the income to meet the monthly repayments.  Homes prices were escalating madly at almost daily intervals and it was reasoned that this was the safety factor.

Even worse, these mortgages were sliced and diced into packs that the industry called " Derivatives" and which the risk assessing agencies graded as " AAA " risk.   They were snapped up by the money market, superannuation funds and municipal councils looking for safe investments which would deliver a decent rate of interest over the long term.

When the boom burst there was financial chaos.  Home prices retreated.  Banks and other institutions deemed " too big to fail " were bailed out by the government.  Many people lost their homes - and their jobs.   Our grand children will be paying back the huge debts that arose from that fiasco.

So - Here we are on the cusp of a decade later - and what has changed ?   Those same tycoons are still running our banks and - almost unbelievably - those same credit assessment agencies that delivered doom to investors who trusted their judgement with those " AAA " ratings are still rating financial risks.  Wages and salaries still have a long way to go to catch up with pre-2008 levels.

What astonished many people was the total lack of accountability sheeted home to the very people who caused this recession.  It seems that nobody faced a court - and nobody did prison time as a result of their malfeasance.   The very same folk are still in their corner offices, directing the financial affairs of the institutions in which they serve.

Now we have a new scandal and it concerns the formidable Commonwealth Bank of Australia.  This bank has installed a new model ATM which is capable of accepting banknotes.  It seems that this has proved a bonanza for terrorist sympathizers who are raising money here and financing terrorist operations in other parts of the world.  Bank records show that millions of dollars have passed unchallenged through these ATM's without alerting the protocols that are supposed to prevent money laundering.

Even worse, after this broke newspaper headlines, nothing changed.   Weeks later these ATM's were still accepting drug money and passing it on to tax havens overseas.  Financial analysts are predicting that the CBA will face fines of over a billion dollars.

That is what infuriates many people. A billion dollar fine simply hurts the bank shareholders and does nothing to the fat cats who draw these big salaries to supervise the operations of the bank.  Whatever happend to " personal responsibility ".    A departmental head is directly responsible for what happens in the chain of command he or she controls.

We will see more of this arrogance until the nightly news delivers a very different picture.  When we see these people in their thousand dollar suits escorted from the bank by flanking police officers, handcuffed and put in the back of a police car for transport to a police charge room.  We will be agog to read of their jury trial and the media speculation as to what length of imprisonment will be handed down.

Watch the dramatic change in personal accountability across the entire financial spectrum once we stop handing out mega fines and insist that the people responsible for breaking the laws directly answer for their crimes.