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Are Big Banks Criminal Enterprises?
Here are some recent improprieties by the big banks:
- Laundering money for drug cartels. See this, this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)
- Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here
- Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold . And raiding allocated gold accounts
- Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them (and see this)
- Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this, this, this, this and this. This would be like selling your car, and collecting money from 10 different buyers for the same car
- Cheating homeowners by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure
- Committing massive fraud in an $800 trillion dollar market which effects everything from mortgages, student loans, small business loans and city financing
- Engaging in insider trading of the most important financial information
- Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this, this, this, this and this
- Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning” to manipulate markets. See this, this, this, this, this and this
- Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees
- Cooking their books (and see this)
The executives of the big banks invariably pretend that the hanky-panky was only committed by a couple of low-level rogue employees. But studies show that most of the fraud is committed by management.
Indeed, one of the world’s top fraud experts – professor of law and economics, and former senior S&L regulator Bill Black – says that most financial fraud is “control fraud”, where the people who own the banks are the ones who implement systemic fraud. See this, this and this.
But at least the big banks do good things for society, like loaning money to Main Street, right?
Actually:
- The big banks no longer do very much traditional banking. Most of their business is from financial speculation. For example, less than 10% of Bank of America’s assets come from traditional banking deposits. Instead, they are mainly engaged in financial speculation and derivatives. (and see this)
- The big banks have slashed lending since they were bailed out by taxpayers … while smaller banks have increased lending. See this, this and this
- A huge portion of the banks’ profits comes from taxpayer bailouts. For example, 77% of JP Morgan’s net income comes from taxpayer subsidies
- The big banks are literally killing the economy … and waging war on the people of the world
- And our democracy and republican form of government as well
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I think you missed one George.
Not paying taxes on profits made either from tax payer funded trades (banks borrowing from the Fed at close to zero and buying the 10 year down to 1.5% today from 4.0% in June 2009 for a nice fat profit of c. 8 years duration times 2.5% drop in yields = 20% leveraged by pre-Basle 3 levels of 25 times) or from being able to carry forward losses made on every shitty piece of paper on their portfolios, forever.
Yes, but to achieve this status they had to include payoffs (oops I mean campaign funds)to politicians in order to write whatever laws they could in their favor or buy the protection from prosecution.
It's almost as if the word went out they were allowed to use any method necessary to bring capital or collateral into the banking system, including fraud of almost every conceivable shape and size.
Do bears shit in the woods (while buying gold and silver)?
they hide their shit in the woods (gold & silver)
The ones that are smarter than average may even have boating accidents.
There's no such thing as Marxism, Facism, Captialism, Monarchism, Communism, Socialism etc. These are just fariy tales to keep us oblivious to the real "ism": Mafia-ism.
The same as it ever was ...
Bada Bing!
Just an ancedote. My niece, working for BoA in CA, regularly refers to her employer as criminals.
Might want to start thinking about what a post-big-bank America would look like. At least the air would be cleaner.
Post big bank America would look the same ,, my local credit union issues Visa and MC credit cards , makes mortgage , business and car loans and connects via worldwide data networks , I could live very very well with BAC , JPM and WFC dead , along with zombie super-regionals like SunTrust ...
damn it scotty, we need more power
they're more like Klingons
Species 8472
DEN OF VIPERS!
Was it not the Rockerfeller's who said we should have controlled the internet so the sheeple would not know.
Too late now.
This is you best post yet Mr. George Washington. Great Stuff......Thanks
Agree that G-Washington does good work. But was this quote offered by Rockefeller? Seems unlikely. And even if it were, what of it? Does the internet culminate in us patting George on the back or something more?
Now if you'll excuse me...America's Got Talent is wrapping up so I must get back to that...no sarc here.
Dude...
Big Banks...
Did you leave out something?
The entire Government, the Armed Forces, all the cops, all the politicians, judges, lawyers, corporations, central bankers...
ALL CRIMINALS
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Perhaps I need to find another hobby because in trying to answer the question I noted above: And even if it were, what of it? I have no better answer than to buy physcial.
Most folks in the military, police, in corps and yes - even in government - are not criminals. They are good people. Sure some are corrupt, but through which lens do you want to view the world?
Good people just following their orders, right?
Little Eichmann's everywhere. Left, right and center.