The Many Ways Banks Commit Criminal Fraud (Excellent reference alert)

Zero Hedge ^ | July 3, 2012

[Zakeet]

The Libor scandal seems to be waking people up to manipulation and fraud by the big banks.

There are any other types of fraud they've engaged in as well ...

Here is a partial list:

• Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them (and see this)

• Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this, this, this, this and this

• Cheating homeowners - especially veterans - from laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure

• Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this, this and this

• Cooking their books

• Bribing and bullying ratings agencies to inflate ratings on their risky investments

• Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this, this, this and this

• Engaging in unlawful "frontrunning" to manipulate markets. See this, this, this, this, this and this

• Engaging in unlawful "Wash Trades" to manipulate asset prices. See this, this and this

• Otherwise manipulating markets. And see this

• Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here

• Participating in various Ponzi schemes. See this, this and this

• Laundering money for drug cartels. See this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)

• Owning and largely running the Federal Reserve ... which is itself arguably a Ponzi scheme

But at least the big banks do good things for society, like loaning money to Main Street, right?

Actually:

• The big banks no longer do very much traditional banking. Most of their business is from financial speculation. For example, less than 10% of Bank of America’s assets come from traditional banking deposits. Instead, they are mainly engaged in financial speculation and derivatives. (and see this)

• The big banks have slashed lending since they were bailed out by taxpayers ... while smaller banks have increased lending. See this, this and this

• A huge portion of the banks' profits comes from taxpayer bailouts. For example, 77% of JP Morgan’s net income comes from taxpayer subsidies

• The big banks are literally killing the economy ... and waging war on the people of the world

• And our democracy and republican form of government as well

[Zakeet]

You can thank people like these for what you read in the above article ... and you should keep them in mind when the financial system collapses in the near future.

[BobL]

There are some sick people on this site that think bankers are as honest as Mother Teresa and that ALL of the problems in the banking sector are due to government.

Now I’ll agree that government is certainly a big factor, but to call bankers honest??? PLEASE.

[Yashcheritsiy]

Impossible! Everyone knows that it’s all the fault of deadbeats who want free houses!!!!

/

[Kartographer]

How much do you want to bet NO ONE goes to jail? I’ve caught flak before and have been call a communist and worse for saying this, but the corner three card Monte dealer is more honest than most of the ‘Too Big to Fail’ banks and investment houses. And face it the Monte dealer who ‘scams’ a few hundred is a thousand times more likely to go to jail that the ‘banksters’ that are stealing millions.

[BlatherNaut]

bump

[Doogle]

Corzine....*ta-dum*...(drum tap)

[Farmer Dean]

Corzine continues to bundle money for Obama.He’s about due for a Ron Brown type of accident-he knows too much.

[NVDave]

If there’s one thing that infuriates me more about conservatives and Republicans than their idiotic worship of bankers, I don’t know what it is.

The even more brutal truth, tho, is that most Republicans and conservatives don’t know their ass from a hot rock how the financial markets today actually work, much less how they’re rigged by the investment banks. They continue to believe in bromides like “free market economics” when, in fact, as long as we have central banks, there are no free markets.

[OldEarlGray]

You can thank...

...the clerks who unquestioningly Empower(tm) their theiving collective/corporate masters with the technology required to fleece the McSheeple?

It is incumbent upon the honorable craftsman to be aware
of whether or not his services are being used
as a means to accomplish evil ends -
and to act (or NOT) accordingly.

[xrmusn]

And face it the Monte dealer who ‘scams’ a few hundred is a thousand times more likely to go to jail that the ‘banksters’ that are stealing millions.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Kind of reminiscent of the day when the pols (all) continued voting themselves raises based on “If you don’t pay us a decent wage, just think what you may get stuck with”
Well, they are getting a decent wage and we can see what we got stuck with.

Shameful.

As long as we collectively have the attitude “ALL pols are crooks, except mine, he is a decent guy” nothing will change and the same deadwood will keep getting recyclyed.

WE have proven that the only answer is term limits but the Pols have the final say and you can see where we stand there.

[Excellence]

srb

[superstitionmountain]

[superstitionmountain]

But, but, didn’t George Bush Senior prosecute a Thousand S&L crooks, while Obama has prosecuted Zero for much bigger, and even some Admitted, crimes? How can this be? You mean justice is partial and the FBI is partisan, depending on who is President? Who woulda thunk?

[superstitionmountain]

Hey, no fair throwing facts and comprehensive research at us on a holiday ;’)