One only has to step back and pay half attention as the credits roll by to understand that the US banking system today is more like the mafia than your friendly neighborhood center dispensing dog biscuits at the drive in window.
Recent stories are bringing to light just what a mess the US banking system has created. Bailed out in 2008, major banks are starting to reveal why they had to be bailed out in the first place and why they need to be broken up now.
They brought the nation and much of the world to its knees in 2008 and very well may do it again. Attempts by the US congress to implement new safe guards after the disastrous repeal of Glass–Steagall Act are going virtually nowhere -- the Republicans on the hill are hemming and hawing, stammering and stalling, and blocking every attempt to implement the provisions of the lame Democratic reform attempt, the Dodd-Frank Act.
True banking reform, however, may rest on the election to the US Senate of Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, if she can keep from getting run over by the Karl Rove money war machine.
Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail
by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?
In sum, Bank of America torched dozens of institutional investors with billions in worthless loans, repeatedly refused to abide by contractual obligations to buy them back, evaded hundreds of millions in local fees and taxes, pushed tens of thousands of people into foreclosure using phony documents, ignored multiple court orders to stop its illegal robo-signing, and exploited President Obama's signature mortgage-relief program. The bank fixed the bids on bonds for schools and cities and utilities all over America, and even conspired to try to game the game itself – by fixing global interest rates!
Too Crooked to Fail: Matt Taibbi Says Bailouts, Fraud are the Secrets to Bank of America’s Success
Democracy Now
Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi chronicles the remarkable history of the rise of Bank of America, an institution he says has defrauded "everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed." Taibbi describes how the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly propped up the financial institution, which received a $45 billion taxpayer bailout in 2008. Bank of America has also received billions in what could be described as shadow bailouts. The bank now owns more than 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits and 17 percent of all home mortgages. Taibbi also recounts how fraudulent practices by Bank of America and other companies ravaged pension funds. "Most people think of [the mortgage crisis] as some airy abstraction — you know, bankers ripping off bankers," Taibbi says. "That’s not what it is. It’s bankers stealing from old ladies and retirees.
Bank of America’s phony mortgages are as fraudulent as fake Prada purses — and they get away with it
The Young Turks Current TV
Matt Taibbi talks to Cenk about his recent “Rolling Stone” article, “Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail.” Taibbi says, “It’s no different than here on the streets of New York where you see people selling fake Prada bags or phony blue jeans. What they were doing is selling phony mortgages… It was a giant fraud scheme. The fraud on Wall Street — they think it’s some kind of abstraction, it’s bankers ripping off other bankers, it’s some kind of insider trading scheme where it’s a victimless crime. That’s not true — it’s bankers ripping off old people and retirees.”
But, as Cenk points out, “There’s never any consequences. They’re in essence too big to comply. They turn to government and go, what are you going to do about it.”
OCC Probing JPMorgan Chase Credit Card Collections
American Banker
JPMorgan Chase & Co. took procedural shortcuts and used faulty account records in suing tens of thousands of delinquent credit card borrowers for at least two years, current and former employees say.
The process flaws sparked a regulatory probe by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and forced the bank to stop suing delinquent borrowers altogether last year.
The bank's errors could call into question the legitimacy of billions of dollars in outstanding claims against debtors and of legal judgments Chase has already won, current and former Chase employees say.
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