TBTF Bankers are above the law, they skate and shareholders and the public get screwed

Bankers have become legalized whores, and I cannot understand why their CEO’s are held in esteem... Far too many times when the "too big to fail" bankers are caught with their hands in the till (or placing the entire global economy on the precipice of collapse, as was the case in 2008), no one (those in charge) were arrested or went to jail and the banks and their shareholders wound up paying a hefty fine and putting the so-called violations of law (criminal activity) behind them as they laughed their asses off. This inevitably leads to jokes about how paying fines is just part of the cost of doing business for the TBTF bankers if you or I committed such larceny

You and I would be doing 15 years to life behind bars...

But it isn't until you aggregate the sums paid over the last 2 decades, which the Financial Times did in a scathing report published this past weekend, pointing out that its very apparent that you can really see just how much these fines (due to illegal activity) actually are becoming a basic cost of doing business for banks and their CEO’s/CFO’s. Over the past 20 years, the (6) largest U.S. banks have paid out nearly $200 billion in fines and penalties (this is monies that belong to the shareholders).  An advocacy group Better Markets found that Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo have paid nearly $195 billion, collectively, since 2000. Thet claim the significant upsurge indicates that overall banker’s behavior has significantly deteriorated (becoming more and more criminal), and they have suffered more fines since the Great global financial crisis than prior to it...as they learnt nothing except thet the penalties for their criminal behaviors were a joke and just a part of doing business. 

 here were 85 major legal complaints against banks between 2000 and 2008. Between 2008 and 2012, that number was 110 cases, most of which were mortgage related. But since 2012, the group found that there had been another 204 legal actions. Better Markets chief executive Dennis Kelleher said: They were all major legal actions... It was not like it was a “broken windows” theory post-crash where prosecutors are fining every little violation. If they were held to a real standard of obeying the laws of our Nation, a moral higher standard they all would have been put out of business because the recidivism is really quite shocking. He continued: “It’s absolutely shocking that JPMorgan has now pleaded guilty to three separate criminal charges for egregious years-long criminal conduct.”

Banks and bankers like JP Morgan and Jamie Dimond are repeating past offenses as in October, the bank paid $920 million for direct manipulation of the metals market this comes after the bank admitted AML failings in 2014 and pleaded guilty in 2015 to manipulating the FX markets.

Ø  JP Morgan “Jamie Dimond” was second only to Bank of America in fines and penalties. Bank of America has paid about $91 billion for 86 legal cases since 2000,

Ø  While JP Morgan has paid slightly over $40 billion as a result of 83 cases.

Ø  Goldman Sachs has also entered into massive multi-billion-dollar settlements, most notably for looting Malaysia’s 1MDB development fund.

However, when you compare the fines to the combined $1.3 trillion in net income the banks have earned over the same 20 years, it becomes clear: the their illegal acticost of doing business" in the investment banking world is well worth it.