On May 29, 2013, Omar Rivero writes on Occupydemocrats.com:
Watch Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson tells Bill that, five years after the country’s economic near-collapse, banks are still too big to fail, too big to manage, and too big to trust HERE:
While the American middle-class continues to struggle with an unprecedentedly deplorable jobs market, the very same large financial institutions and multinational banks that got us into this mess are doing swimmingly.
According to a new report by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation(FDIC) released Wednesday, the American banking industry earned $40.3 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, breaking the record for the highest ever for a single quarter and up 15.8% from the first quarter of 2012, when the industries profits were a healthy $34.8 billion.
After nearly destroying the global financial economy and having to be bailed out by the American taxpayer, not only are these multinational banks laughing in the face of the middle class by raking in record high profits, they are also making sure that their improved finances do not “trickle-down” to the general economy and working class.
The report shows that only about half of all US banks improved their profits this year, the lowest level since 2009. This proves that the banking industry’s growth is being sustained by only a handful of big banks.
These banks are Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase and Company, Wells Fargo and Company, and Bank of America Corporation, all of which have benefited from President Bush’s generous taxpayer bailout and record low borrowing rates from the Federal Reserve.
You may be asking yourself, but don’t know interest rates lead to lower revenue from bank loans?
Yes, but while the industry’s profit margins from charging interest have declined, the big banks are ratcheting up revenue from costumer fees, despite complaints from customers and consumer advocates like Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Also, although the federal government gave them generous bailout loans when their finances were struggling, banks have themselves shamelessly adopted stricter lending standards for the middle class, requiring higher credit scores, larger down payments, and proof of employment.
Do you see what they did there? The big banks, destroyed the American middle-class and their own finances with reckless and criminal financial fraud, demanded generous loan terms for their taxpayer bailouts, and now have the gall to turn around and refuse to lend out the very same money we gave them, simply because they don’t trust our “credit scores”.
