Vital Concerns for the World: A billion lost here, a billion lost there ... Can we trust the bankers?

Friday, August 17, 2012

A billion lost here, a billion lost there ... Can we trust the bankers?

When I read the recent notice that very likely no one will be prosecuted for losing a billion dollars at MF Global I began to wonder if we actually have a meaningful banking industry.

The last I heard, the amount that J P Morgan has lost in trading has reached “at least $5.8 billion.”

If no one can be made accountable for losses of a billion dollars in a bank what hope is there that we peons can count on our funds being there when we need them?

What kind of world economy do we actually have? The one thing that seems obvious is that the bankers who manage to lose a mere billion here or there – a matter that Jamie Dimon of J P Morgan called a “ tempest in a teapot” – are not going to lose out. It’s the rest of us that are likely to come up short.

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A major source of the American debt problem

Notable Concerns

"Not one has taken responsibility for the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rica, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith.
The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. AlJazeera 10/15/11
GE, America's largest corporation, paid no taxes last year even though it made 5.1 billion dollars profit in the country [and even more outside the country] [source: same as below]
In 2009 the richest 5% held 63.5% of American wealth; the bottom 80% controlled 12.8%. [source: same as below]
Between 2000 and 2007 the richest 10% in America benefited from all of the average growth in the period. In the post WW II period the top 10% benefited from only one third of the growth, the bottom 90% benefiting from the rest of the growth. [Economic Policy Institute, cited by Bob Herbert, NYT 3/26/11]
In 2010 a "premier" investment bank paid each of its 26,000 employees an average of $370,000. [Bill Gross Pimco Investment Outlook Feb, 2011.]
In 2005, one-quarter of the corporations in America making a trillion dolars in revenue paid no taxes.
The 833% Medical Insurance Ripoff: Medicare charges 3% for service; the health insurance companies in Missouri charge 25% for services
The richest 1 percent of Americans have more net worth than the bottom 90 percent.
The richest 1 percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 50%. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-viral-speech-says-top-1$ >