Preface: Not all banks are criminal enterprises. The wrongdoing of a particular bank cannot be attributed to other banks without proof. But – as documented below – many of the biggest banks have engaged in unimaginably bad behavior.
Here are just some of the improprieties by big banks:
- Funding the Nazis [10]
- Financing illegal arms deals [12], and funding the manufacture of cluster bombs [13] (and see this [14] and this [15]) and other arms which are banned in most of the world
- Launching a coup [10] against the President of the United States
- Handling money for rogue military operations [12]
- Laundering money for drug cartels. See this [11], this [16], this [17] and this [18] (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat [19] during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)
- Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this [20], this [21] and this [22]
- 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 [23], here [24], here [25], here [26], here [27], here [28], here [29], here [30], here [31], here [32], here [33] and here
- Artificially suppressing [34] gold prices
- Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold [35]. And raiding allocated gold accounts [36]
- Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them [37] (and see this [38])
- Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this [39], this [40], this [41], this [42] and this [43]. This would be like selling your car, and collecting money from 10 different buyers for the same car
- Cheating homeowners [44] by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure
- Committing massive fraud [45] in an $800 trillion dollar market which effects everything from mortgages, student loans, small business loans and city financing
- Manipulating the hundred trillion dollar derivatives market [46]
- Engaging in insider trading of the most important financial information [47]
- Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this [48], this [49], this [50], this [51] and this [52]
- Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning [53]” to manipulate markets. See this [54], this [55], this [56], this [57], this [58] and this [59]
- Engaging in unlawful “Wash Trades” to manipulate asset prices. See this [60], this [61] and this [62]
- Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees [68]
- Helping the richest to illegally hide assets [69]
- Cooking their books [70] (and see this [71])
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 [74].
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 [75], this [38] and this [76].
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 [77]. Instead, they are mainly engaged in financial speculation and derivatives. (and see this [78])
- The big banks have slashed lending since they were bailed out by taxpayers … while smaller banks have increased lending. See this [79], this [80] and this [81]
- A huge portion [82] of the banks’ profits comes from taxpayer bailouts. For example, 77% of JP Morgan’s net income comes from taxpayer subsidies [83]
- The big banks are literally killing the economy [84] … and waging war on the people of the world [85]
- And our democracy [86] and republican form of government [87] as well