The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap Highlight

No individual would be charged with anything or have to pay a dollar in fines. No person in any of HSBC’s banks anywhere in the world had to have so much as a ticket on his record. The only penalty was a settlement. It was a big fine: $1.9 billion, at the time the biggest such fine in history—which sounds impressive until you realize the sum equaled about five weeks of revenue for a bank that earned somewhere north of $22 billion a year. Oh, and HSBC had to partially—not fully but partially—defer some of its bonus payments to top executives. And it had to apologize, which it did. “We are profoundly sorry,” said CEO Stuart Gulliver. The cops had let HSBC walk out of the park.