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You read constantly that banks are lobbying regulators and elected officials as if this is inappropriate. We don't look at it that way.

The threat posed by Bank of America isn't just financial - it's a full-blown assault on the American dream. Where's the incentive to play fair and do well, when what we see rewarded at the highest levels of society is failure, stupidity, incompetence and meanness? If this is what winning in our system looks like, who doesn't want to be a loser?

What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.

It would not be a bad idea if bankers were to go and sit occasionally with politicians in their political surgeries, where they might get a sense of the injustice that some of the community feel about the banks.

Even to build a vote bank, you need to tackle the problems people face. Rural jobs that stop migration to cities, road networks for better connectivity, and a sense of security get people to vote for you.

I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.

Banks are slowly but surely lending again, and never again will taxpayers foot the bill for Wall Street's excesses. In case we forgot, that was the change we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.

More money is being spent on our elections, with less disclosure of where that money is coming from, than ever before.

Ours is a government of checks and balances. The Mafia and crooked businessmen make out checks, and the politicians and other compromised officials improve their bank balances.