Bernie Madoff has said all along that JP Morgan knew about – and knowingly profited from – his Ponzi schemes [10].
So JP Morgan has agreed to pay the government $2 billion to avoid investigation and prosecution [11].
While this may sound like a lot of money, it is spare sofa change for a big bank like JP Morgan.
It’s not just the Madoff scheme.
As shown below, the big banks – including JP Morgan [12] – are manipulating virtually every market – both in the financial sector and the real economy [13] – and breaking virtually every law on the books [14].
Here are just some of the recent improprieties by big banks:
- Laundering money for terrorists [15] (the HSBC employee who blew the whistle [16] on the banks’ money laundering for terrorists and drug cartels says that the giant bank is still laundering money, saying: “The public needs to know that money is still being funneled through HSBC to directly buy guns and bullets to kill our soldiers …. Banks financing … terrorists affects every single American. [17]” He also said: “It is disgusting that our banks are STILL financing terror on 9/11 2013 [18]“. And see this [19])
- Financing illegal arms deals [20], and funding the manufacture of cluster bombs [21] (and see this [22] and this [23]) and other arms which are banned in most of the world
- Handling money for rogue military operations [20]
- Laundering money for drug cartels. See this [24], this [15], this [25], this [26] and this [27] (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat [28] during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis). A whistleblower said: “America is losing the drug war because our banks are [still] financing the cartels [29]“, and “Banks financing drug cartels … affects every single American [17]“. And see this [19].)
- Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this [30], this [31] and this [32]
- 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 [33], here [34], here [35], here [36], here [37], here [38], here [39], here [40], here [41], here [42], here [43] and here
- Manipulating aluminum and copper prices [44]
- Manipulating gold prices [45] … on a daily basis [46]
- Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold [47]. And raiding allocated gold accounts [48]
- Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them [49] (and see this [50])
- Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this [51], this [52], this [53], this [54] and this [55]. This would be like selling your car, and collecting money from 10 different buyers for the same car
- Cheating homeowners [56] by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure
- Committing massive fraud [57] 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 [58]
- Engaging in insider trading of the most important financial information [59]
- Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this [60], this [61], this [62], this [63] and this [64]
- Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning [65]” to manipulate markets. See this [66], this [67], this [68], this [69], this [70] and this [71]
- Engaging in unlawful “Wash Trades” to manipulate asset prices. See this [72], this [73] and this [74]
- Manipulating corporate bonds [75] through derivatives schemes
- Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees [78]
- Helping the richest to illegally hide assets [79]
- Cooking their books [80] (and see this [81])
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 [85].
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 [86], this [50] and this [87].
The failure to go after Wall Street executives for criminal fraud is the core cause of our sick economy [88].
And experts say that all of the government’s excuses for failure to prosecute the individuals at the big Wall Street banks who committed fraud are totally bogus [88].
The big picture is simple:
- The big banks manipulate every market they touch
- Too much interconnectedness leads to financial instability [89]
- The government has given the banks huge subsidies [90] … which they are using for speculation [91] and other things [92] which don’t help the economy. In other words, propping up the big banks by throwing money at them doesn’t help the economy
- Top economists, financial experts and bankers say [93] that the big banks are too large … and their very size is threatening the economy. They say we need to break up the big banks [94] to stabilize the economy
- The big banks own the D.C. politicians [95] … so Congress and the White House won’t do anything unless the people force change
Also: