Pope Francis calls out 'greedy' bankers: 'Stop getting rich on financial speculation!'

Pope Francis has called on "greedy" bankers to establish a stricter ethics code, and stop getting rich through financial market speculation. He attacked the practice of hedging as ‘intolerable’ equating it to stealing food from the poor.

"It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of peoples rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences," Pope Francis said at an investors ethics’ seminar at the Vatican on Monday.

Specifically, the pope denounced the practice of betting on the price of commodities such as corn, meat, and rice, which can drive up food prices and trigger periods of starvation in parts of the worlds.

"Speculation on food prices is a scandal which seriously compromises access to food on the part of the poorest members of our human family," he said.

This Pope called for an end to this “scandal” and said that finance institutions should serve the interests of all mankind, and not just wealthy and privileged individuals.

Pope Francis has been more vocal than any other Pope on the modern superstructure of wealth, which in his first major published work as a Pope, The Joy of the Gospel, he slammed as a “new tyranny” and called on the rich to share their wealth. In the same speech he equated not sharing wealth with the poor to stealing.