As the CBA announces billions in after-tax profits, workers are denied wage rises to keep up with inflation and many will be squeezed by interest rate hikes. Peter Boyle argues that the bank should be taken back into public ownership and run as a not-for-profit service.
Everybody knows the gambling industry feeds on misery. We need to hold the individual fat cats accountable. But we also have to shine a spotlight on the pathway out of this systemic mess, argues Alex Bainbridge.
"CBA: We put profit ahead of people", was the headline emblazoned on the front page of the November 20 Sydney Morning Herald. The paper was reporting on the first day of the final round of hearings of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, in which the CEOs of the Big Four banks were being grilled about the banking scandals that have outraged the Australian community over the past year.
The Big Money Club clearly lives by its own perverse rules.
The interim report of Royal Commissioner Kenneth Hayne on the crimes and greed of the Big Four banks underlines the urgent need to radically overhaul the banking and financial system.
There has been ongoing reporting of individual instances of bank malpractice and occasional reporting of large scale institutionalised malpractice. Reporting of the banking royal commission hearings has quickened the pace. But nobody, including the media, joins the dots: the key financial institutions are structurally given to corrupt practices, writes Evan Jones.
