The Banks are still run by Criminals

Today I met two old friends for lunch. Liam and Mary are a happily married couple, have children and belong to the small portion of Irish people who did not go crazy during the time of the 'Celtic Tiger'.
They both have a good job and are reasonably well-off. Nevertheless they are now struggling to pay their mortgage, as they told me.
"We still can manage the monthly payments," Liam said, "but in order to do so we have to cut back on other things. No more second holidays, and less sweets for the children, for example."
I listened with interest, and I know they will manage somehow. They are both resourceful people.
But then I was very surprised when Mary told something else. Her bank had just rang her and asked if she wanted an extra loan. Liam, who has a small business, had a similar call from a different bank a few days earlier.
"They must know that we have a mortgage," Mary said, "and when they look at our account details, they can see that we are not big spenders. So why are they trying to push loans into our face, even after the big disaster they got themselves into and nearly busted the banks?"
"Yes," Liam agreed, "they nearly went down, if the state had not bailed them out with the taxpayers' money."

I am as baffled as Liam and Mary. But what they told me is not an exception, it is rather the rule. Over the past couple of weeks I had several people telling me the same. Their bank rang them and asked if they wanted an extra loan.
What is going on? Do the banks not have enough trouble? All of the Irish banks are vastly under-capitalised, badly managed and at the brink of collapse. You would expect them to be tight now and lend less than before. But that's not the case. They seem to carry on as before, and in some cases even more aggressively.

Makes no sense, unless you see behind the scenes. Now, that the state has guaranteed the banks' eternal existence with our money, they are save and have no more worries at all. If they recover from the crisis - great. And if not - well, the state will pick up the tab, which means you and me.

By pushing ever more loans onto people, they also hope to make more money from interest and - in case the borrower gets into arrears - nice extra fees they are so quick to add in such cases to the amount owed. The other day I read about a widow who had borrowed a small sum from her bank to make repairs on her house. Then she got sick, could not continue with the agreed repayments, and now the amount the bank demands from her has risen astronomically. They are looking for more than five times the sum she had borrowed from them!

That's criminal behaviour, and should not happen at all. And now, that the state and we - the people - are guaranteeing the banks' existence with our money, the banks should change their behaviour, and do it quickly.
If they don't do that, the day will come when the people will tear them apart and applaud when they go down. They are playing with fire very close to the fuel tank. They have learned nothing from the crisis. And they are still run by the same old criminals who caused the crisis in the first place.

Heads need to roll, especially the heads of the top bankers and their fancy 'traders' who do nothing else but gamble our money away in big international casinos, called 'stock exchanges' and 'financial markets'. These people never produce anything, never buy or sell anything real, and don't give a hoot for the rest of us. They award themselves with huge 'bonuses' for their criminal gambling, and we all are supposed to pick up the tab when they mess up.

It is ever more clear to me that all this crisis can only be overcome in one way: With a big revolution!