A Right to Make a Profit?

From Newser.com: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan defended his bank’s controversial new $5 debit card fee in a CNBC interview yesterday, saying that most customers would avoid it, and that the bank had given customers plenty of warning about it. Asked to respond to President Obama’s statement that banks don’t have “an inherent right to a certain amount of profit,” Moynihan replied that “I have an inherent duty as a CEO … to get a return for my shareholders.”

He said that once BofA talks to customers and shareholders “they’ll understand what we’re doing—understand we have a right to make a profit.”

No, Mr. Moynihan, you have NO RIGHT to make a profit! This is America…you have the opportunity to make a profit. As CEO, you have the obligation to your shareholders to get a return, as you noted, but no RIGHT to a profit! You and other big banks and investment banks got a giant bailout from taxpayers and the Fed…you have, in effect, privatized profits and socialized losses. That is NOT the American way, and it’s now generating quite a bit of anger right down at the street level on Wall Street and elsewhere. Having run small businesses, I can assure you that no one ever guaranteed my RIGHT to a profit…sometimes we made good ones, other times, we took a haircut. That’s business in the real world. I suggest you and other arrogant banksters step out into that real world and see how things REALLY are!