Underhanded bank practices go unpunished

There is sworn testimony by bank officers that more than 100,000 cases of fraud have occurred. Several recent court rulings have cast shadows over the validity of half the mortgages in the United States and the investments that have been sold to pension funds based on these mortgages.

Major investment groups have admitted to advising their clients to invest in products that they knew were against their interests. They said that they had no fiduciary responsibility to their clients and it was buyer beware.

Also, many previously illegal financial acts have been made legal following decades of campaign contributions by the financial community.

Yet there have been essentially no criminal convictions of individuals and in a few cases convictions with relatively small fines for the companies. Since much of this occurred in 2007 and before, many of these individuals and companies are or soon will be protected by a five-year statute of limitations and freedom from re-prosecution.

Failure to enforce the law effectively negates the law.

William Smith

Iowa City