Here are some recent improprieties by the big banks:
- Laundering money for drug cartels. See this [10], this [11], this [12] and this [13] (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat [14] during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)
- Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this [15], this [16] and this [17]
- 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 [18], here [19], here [20], here [21], here [22], here [23], here [24], here [25], here [26], here [27], here [28] and here
- Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold [29]. And raiding allocated gold accounts [30]
- Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them [31] (and see this [32])
- Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this [33], this [34], this [35], this [36] and this [37]. This would be like selling your car, and collecting money from 10 different buyers for the same car
- Cheating homeowners [38] by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure
- Committing massive fraud [39] 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 [40]
- Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this [41], this [42], this [43], this [44] and this [45]
- Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning [46]” to manipulate markets. See this [47], this [48], this [49], this [50], this [51] and this [52]
- Engaging in unlawful “Wash Trades” to manipulate asset prices. See this [53], this [54] and this [55]
- Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees [61]
- Cooking their books [62] (and see this [63])
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 [66].
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 [67], this [32] and this [68].
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 [69]. Instead, they are mainly engaged in financial speculation and derivatives. (and see this [70])
- The big banks have slashed lending since they were bailed out by taxpayers … while smaller banks have increased lending. See this [71], this [72] and this [73]
- A huge portion [74] of the banks’ profits comes from taxpayer bailouts. For example, 77% of JP Morgan’s net income comes from taxpayer subsidies [75]
- The big banks are literally killing the economy [76] … and waging war on the people of the world [77]
- And our democracy [78] and republican form of government [79] as well