Bank of America grudgingly agreed to pay $17 billion to settle claims over its responsibility for the Great Recession. The deal involves the bank’s sale of toxic securities backed by home loans. Sen. Bernie Sanders was unimpressed with what amounted to a plea bargain. “The greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of Bank of America and other Wall Street firms caused a horrendous recession which cost millions of Americans their homes, jobs and life savings. Given the reality that, as part of the bailout, the Bank of America received more than $1 trillion in virtually zero-interest loans and that nobody from the company has yet gone to jail, this is a very modest settlement,” the senator said.