We live in a capitalist dystopia

Funny that the article doesn't mention how much Fifth Third made off their scam. I assume that it was less than what they were fined so as to discourage them and other banks from attempting similar schemes in the future. That's how these things play out in real life, right?

Likely just a slap on the wrist. Probably made 10 times the fine they were assessed. Frankly the minute a company gets a fine like this the company should be required, at the very least, to remove the CEO and all other senior executives WITHOUT honoring their severance packages(NO GOLDEN PARACHUTE FOR YOU).

The US government should never advocate breaking a legal contract due to completely separate illegal acts committed by the institution.

They should no longer be a bank, and the all involved should be blacklisted to prevent them ever working in a financial agency ever again. Because if they did horrible crime once, they will do it again.

If the only penalty for a crime is a relatively small fine, then it's not really a crime, it's a cost of business.

I disagree on the first part. Company broke the law, it's contracts with the enablers of said illegal acts should be null and void(which is why I singled out the senior executives). As far as the second part.... My only issue with doing that is the fallout. The average bank teller likely had nothing to do with said decisions. Neither did members of the banks IT department, janitorial staff, etc. All of them would have to look for another job. Better solution is to have a government task force take over management of the company for a time, force a rewrite to the company charter and then hand it over to a new group of executives followed by a period of increased government oversight. You have to hit the executives and possibly the shareholders where it hurts to reduce this kind of garbage from happening.

Yup, fair point. No reason to punish the every day because a bunch of 1%ers can't keep their hands in their own wallets.

Better-er system would be to nationalize the whole system under the control of the Fed so we don't ever have to worry about scamming people for profits ever again, because there are no profits to be made, just a duty to one's country.