Having been a banker for the past 35+ years, I can tell you that bankers don't willingly engage in shenanigans.
They do things that are prudent and they do things that are encouraged by regulators and the government.
The two rarely mesh. The banks that go overboard in doing what the government demands wind up being "disappeared" by that same government.
The ones that resist to a degree that prudence demands either survive or suffer the same fate. It is an extremely difficult balancing act.
I'm afraid I have to agree.
The Socialist (Marxist) left has collaborated with the MSM to get bankers perceived by the public emotionally rather than analytically.
In the recent housing blowup, there was little reporting on how the Socialist US Government ordered bankers to make residential real estate mortgage loans that there was no probability they would be repaid, after all it was the rich, greedy bankers doing wrong, ignore the Federal bureaucrat behind the curtain.
The only bankers the government and leftists won't talk about are the few that took their banks out of all residential real estate mortgage lending and went commercial business only. None of those had trouble, losses or failed, and they were the only ones that figured out how to not be involved in the government ordered irresponsibility.
The local guy who runs the bank where I do my business...yeah, he does not engage in shenanegans.
I was talking about the Robert Rubin types who hold sway in Washington.
I hope you are retired and living on some nice Caribbean island before the Fake White Indian gets elected POTUS and begins televised public banker floggings.
Shenanegans or not, banks WILLINGLY participate with the IRS. That right there is enough for me to distrust them.