And folks are all but lining up to let them repeat history. Why? Because secretly deep down they like being penetrated up the 'patootie' and having the lifeblood sucked out of their respective and collective jugulars? One hopes for the majority of Americans that scenario is not their first preference -- or worse still -- their only option. But at present and for the foreseeable future it might just as well be the case.
As indicated, today -- seven years after the biggest economic implosion since the Great Depression -- the Gangbanksters are more powerful, influential and criminally inclined than ever, the carnage ushered in by their Mephistophelean mendacity and malignant greed all but a fading memory. They are also unrepentant, evidenced as much by their recidivism as by their pathological resistance to greater transparency, accountability and control, highlighted once again by one of redoubtable Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi's more recent exposes.
A Trillion Dollars Here, a Trillion Dollars There
Taibbi of course is a man known for his pitiless excoriations of the 'Gangbanksters'; he once memorably described Goldman Sachs as a "a giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Yet whilst Goldman might be the Monsanto of Wall Street, even Taibbi surely would admit it has not cornered the market on avarice, deception, market manipulation and criminal fraud. For example, he also had a lot to say about the foreign currencies and interest rates rigging scandal which involved CitiGroup and JPMC in the U.S., and Barclays (who incidentally took over the remnants of the mortally wounded Lehman Bros. in the wake of the meltdown) and the Royal Bank of Scotland in the U.K., all of whom pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros in the $5 trillion (yes, trillion) foreign exchange marketplace, aka the Forex spot market. The Swiss giant UBS pleaded guilty for its role in manipulating the standard rate that some of the world's banking behemoths charge each other for short-term inter-bank loans, the so-called LIBOR benchmark interest rate.
No individual senior bank executives of these banks were charged with - much less jailed for - criminal offenses as part of the out-of-court settlements.
And whilst on the subject of trillions, in order to prepare ourselves for what follows, we should pause here to get our heads around exactly what one trillion dollars might look and feel like. For a deeper conceptual and graphical appreciation thereof, readers are encouraged to go to this link; this one short video animation is worth a trillion words, and is an eye-opener to be sure. Even in denominations of single 'Benjamins', as the animation vividly demos it amounts to Wal-Mart warehouse-sized amounts of 'moolah'. It is here that indelible sound bite from former US senator Everett Dirksen comes to mind, to wit: 'a trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, and pretty soon we're talking serious money'!
Now let's keep this animation in mind so we all might begin to get a true 'optic' on how much taxpayers' money it took to keep the Good Ship America afloat. According to Pam and Russ Martens of Wall Street on Parade, over thirteen trillion dollars has been pumped into the financial system since 2008! This represents almost twenty times more than the original Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) had allocated for the rescue. To put that rescue figure into perspective, the notional value of the US economy (its annual output/GDP) is approximately seventeen 'trill' -- give or take a trill -- so the bailout represented about seventy five per cent of this amount! And when we are talking about 'giving or taking a trillion', we know we are definitely not in Kansas anymore! An even more alarming consideration is America's current national debt -- now over $18.25 'trill' and counting!
And here's an angle worth pondering. At the time of the introduction of the Obamacare bill into Congress in 2009, just over one trillion dollars was estimated to be the cost of launching and maintaining a universal health care system that would have provided coverage for up to fifty million Americans for ten years. And yet from the Congress to the Heartland, and from Wall Street to K Street, immeasurably more collective angst was evident over how much the Affordable Health Care Act was supposedly going to cost America than there was over how much it was actually costing Americans to bail out the too big to nail bankers. This is one helluva "go figure" mo' to be sure!
Moreover, although fewer in number, the big Wall Street banks still standing are now almost twenty-five per cent larger than they were pre-crisis. The top six hold more than $US10 trillion dollars in assets, about sixty-three per cent of total output of the US economy, up from 43 per cent 7 years ago.
If that doesn't provide a taste for anyone interested of the astronomical influence, access and power that comes with either having such income, wealth and assets or being 'in the same room' with those that do, the following should do it. One firm alone (JPMC) is said to hold upwards of $US19 'trill' in custodial assets for its clients. Along with highlighting the real costs of rescuing Wall Street, the Martens in the same piece also point to the fact that the Street folks are still seeking, with commendable chutzpah one imagines, further assistance from Uncle Sam and his hapless heartland minions!
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