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Five years since the 2008 financial meltdown, the speculation and fraud that caused the crash are back in full force in the United States. Flush with the $85 billion in cash printed up and handed to the banks every month by the Federal Reserve, business at the Wall Street casino is booming. Stock values are at record levels and so are bank profits, amidst declining wages and mass poverty.

Under these conditions, the banks have been pushing to rip up even the very modest restrictions on financial speculation, while broadening the scope of government bailout laws. The aim is simple: to give banks the maximum ability to speculate without constraint, while getting the maximum possible government assistance if and when the bubble collapses.

So close is the bankers’ grip on the reins of government that, no longer content to let their bought-and-paid-for politicians write laws, the banks have taken to doing the work themselves.

The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report Monday showing that electronics giant Apple Inc. uses offshore tax shelters to avoid taxes on the majority of its income and cheated the US government out of $9 billion in 2012 alone.

That same day, a tornado leveled the town of Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 people, including seven children, who died huddled in hallways and bathrooms of their elementary school because officials lacked funds to build a storm shelter.

The juxtaposition of these two events speaks volumes about American society. Vital social needs of the people—like emergency services and decent schools—are ignored, because there is supposedly no money to pay for them. Yet the fact that one of the world’s largest corporations has systematically robbed the state of tens of billions of dollars is accepted with barely a protest by the political establishment. At a Senate hearing Tuesday on Apple’s tax evasion, none of the US senators called for a criminal investigation into the company, let alone demanded that any of the taxes it dodged be paid.

The immediate cause of the disaster wrought on Moore, Oklahoma this week was natural in character: a massive tornado with winds that surpassed 200 miles per hour. Yet, as with so many similar events in America, the consequences were immensely compounded by social and economic conditions.

At least 24 people have been killed, and 240 more were injured. Among the dead were ten children. These deaths were entirely preventable—the direct product of the lack of adequate infrastructure and safety protection in what is known as “Tornado Alley.”

If there is any city in the United States where emergency measures should have been taken to ensure protection from tornadoes, it is Moore. Indeed, the city is perhaps best known for its repeated encounters with tornadoes. In 1999, the strongest tornado ever recorded near the earth’s surface tore a strip through the same area that was struck Monday, killing 42.

The fact that, some fourteen years later, almost nothing has been done to protect residents from tornadoes is a crime for which the entire political establishment stands condemned.

As Moore, Oklahoma residents grapple with the devastating destruction from Monday’s tornado, information is coming out about the way in which the lack of adequate infrastructure significantly increased the death toll.

At least 24 people were killed, including nine children, when a massive twister hit the Oklahoma City suburb Monday afternoon. Seven of the children were students at an elementary school in the direct path of the storm. At least 240 others were injured; of those, 60 are children.

The Oklahoma City Medical Examiner’s Office modified their early fatality estimate of 51 early on Tuesday, saying that the lack of phone communications had resulted in double reporting of casualties. However, the death toll will likely climb as search teams carry out their work.