America Watches In Stunned Disbelief As Afghanistan Jails Two Failed Bank Executives

Spot the banana republic:
Nation #1 spends and issues tens of trillions in taxpayer funds and debt, crushing the growth potential of future generations, just to bail out a banking sector full to the brim with criminal “riggers” (as today’s settlements once again prove), where bubble mania was so pervasive not a single bank would have survived absent a global central bank bailout, and where bank executives wouldn’t bend over for anything less than a million. Nation #2 just sentenced two senior officials of a bank that collapsed under (a measly by New Normal standards) $1 billion in debt to 15 years in prison each for embezzlement and fraud. Nation #1 is, of course, the US (or any other western nation). Nation #2 is Afghanistan.
Which one is the banana republic again?
AP reports that the scandal in 2010 shook confidence in Afghanistan’s tiny banking sector, and the loss accounted for around 5 percent of the country’s economy, making it the biggest banking collapse in history. By comparison, just the derivative book of JPMorgan alone is 4 times the size of US GDP.
Like in the US, the government had no choice but to bail out the bank and brought in receivers who, officials say, have traced most of the missing funds.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 11/12/2014.