Free Republic

Here’s the secret banks in Indiana don’t want Hoosiers to know. Big banks discriminate. They do it all the time and they’re fighting hard to make sure that doesn’t change. Banks have been openly discriminating against businesses they feel have fallen out of political favor. The firearm industry knows this all too well. This has been happening since the Obama administration, when then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder instituted Operation Choke Point. It was an illegal scheme contrived to use the muscle of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which backs banks’ assets with taxpayer funds, to force banks to deny banking...

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is raking in Wall Street cash from all the big banks at five times the rate of President Trump, a CNN report admits. An analysis by CNN found that “all the big banks are backing Biden” against Trump, with the former vice president taking a larger margin of Wall Street donations than even failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton did in 2016. CNN reports: The securities and investment industry donated just $10.5 million to Trump’s presidential campaign and outside groups aligned with it, according to a new tally by OpenSecrets. It has sent nearly five...

U.S. equity markets rallied Tuesday as some of the country’s biggest banks kicked off earnings season. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 596 points, or 2.6 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 2.5 percent. The Nasdaq Composite surged 2.9 percent, on track to leave its bear market and stretch its winning streak to four days, the longest since February. The index must close higher by at least 40.38 points to officially exit.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2016-241 Washington D.C., Nov. 17, 2016 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay more than $130 million to settle SEC charges that it won business from clients and corruptly influenced government officials in the Asia-Pacific region by giving jobs and internships to their relatives and friends in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). JPMorgan also is expected to pay $72 million to the Justice Department and $61.9 million to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for a total of more than $264 million in sanctions...

During the August 18, 2018, airing of Breitbart News Saturday, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry explained that he chose, in part, to withhold $600 million from Citigroup and Bank of America because they are “trying to become the social police.” On August 16, 2018, Breitbart News reported Landry’s decision to withhold the $600 million, a decision shared by the Louisiana Bond Commission and State Treasurer John Schroder. The decision to withhold the money came after Citigroup and Bank of America each unilaterally placed gun control demands on their customers, going so far as to stipulate that bank-sponsored gun regulations had...

Western banking met Islam many decades ago, but only began to sleep with her a few years ago. Since then, it is has become a wanton and open affair. The implications for the West, and especially for the U.S., are staggering. Because all Islamic banking products must be created and offered according to strict Sharia law, global banks are doing for Islam what it could never do on its own: Give legitimacy to Sharia and infiltrate it into the fabric of Western society.

Stocks drop after Trump says he's actively considering breaking up big banks Headline only at this time.

According to a study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in March of last year, U.S. taxpayers have already injected $187.5 billion into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two companies that prior to the 2008 financial crash traded on the New York Stock Exchange, had shareholders and their own Board of Directors while also receiving an implicit taxpayer guarantee on their debt. The U.S. government put the pair into conservatorship on September 6, 2008. The public has been led to believe that the $187.5 billion bailout of the pair was the full extent of the taxpayers’ tab....

... Bank of America (BAC) on Thursday announced it set aside $997 million to protect from loan losses, mainly in the bank's $22 billion energy portfolio. Wells Fargo (WFC) warned of "significant stress" and "deterioration" in the oil and gas space. The problems there forced Wells Fargo to add $200 million in loan-loss reserves, its first increase to this rainy-day fund since 2009. And JPMorgan Chase increased its provisions for credit losses by 88%, mostly due to the oil, natural gas and pipeline business. It was enough to cause JPMorgan's (JPM) first drop in profits since late 2014. ...

Entering into 2016, all members of the European Union (EU) were required by law to have bail-in legislation on their books in preparation for the next potential crisis that in previous times would have resulted in a taxpayer funded bailout. This was accomplished both by individual countries, and at the central bank level, and is regulated under the auspices of the European recovery and resolution framework for banks. And on April 10, it appears that these new rules have come not a moment too soon as Austria is to become the first European state to implement a bail-in as it...

Some of the US’s biggest banks still lack a proper plan for bankruptcy, in the event of another major financial crisis, US regulators said on Wednesday. In the wake of the great recession banks were required to come up with “living wills” to prove they had a credible plan for bankruptcy that would not require another bailout from the taxpayers. But after reviewing the plans of five institutions – JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon and State Street Corp – the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) have determined that...

Goldman Sachs has completed a $5.1 billion settlement with state and federal officials over the bank’s role in the subprime mortgage crisis. Goldman is the last of the big American banks to reach a settlement with the national working group that was set up in 2012 to investigate how Wall Street exacerbated the mortgage bubble and ensuing financial crisis. Goldman said in January that it had put aside money to cover a $5 billion settlement. The final bill for Goldman is less than the settlements of mortgage giants like JPMorgan Chase, which paid $13.3 billion, and Bank of America, which...

Three of Britain's largest banks are planning to close about 400 branches this year, according to people familiar with the situation, a new program of closures that could leave thousands of customers without easy access to a bank. The number of branches operated by the major banking groups in the UK has halved in the last 20 years and following political pressure a new rule was set last year that requires banks to assess the impact on local communities of a branch closure. HSBC (HSBA.L) may close the highest number with about 200 branches set to go this year, the...

Jamie Dimon likes to write grandiose letters to shareholders. Unfortunately, the financial media sees fit to treat them seriously. And his minders manage to save him from himself. Right after the crisis, DimonÂ’s annual missive contained an section praising the heroics of his staff, comparing them at length to the soldiers at Iowa Jima. Dimon was persuaded to get rid of that bit only because his outside PR firm threatened to quit. This yearÂ’s letter, as recapped by the Financial Times, is every bit as exaggerated, although less obviously so to the outsider. The theme this year is why too...

Big banks are cringing as crude oil is crumbling. Firms on Wall Street helped bankroll America's energy boom, financing very expensive drilling projects that ended up flooding the world with oil. Now that the oil glut has caused prices to crash below $30 a barrel, turmoil is rippling through the energy industry and souring many of those loans. Dozens of oil companies have gone bankrupt and the ones that haven't are feeling enough financial stress to slash spending and cut tens of thousands of jobs. Three of America's biggest banks warned last week that oil prices will continue to create...

J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is focused on building a so-called fortress balance sheet at his behemoth bank. To that end, he said the bank JPM, +0.04% has added around $500 million to its reserves against loans losses in the oil-and-gas sector in the first quarter of 2016. The move comes as crude-oil prices have fallen about 12% so far this year and have plunged 34% over the past 12 months, putting the finances of energy companies under pressure. Offering details about its balance sheet at an event for investors in New York on Tuesday, the sprawling bank said...

Ever since the financial crisis, many outside the wealthy elite (sometimes referred to as populists) have argued that the largest banks are too big and too risky. Minneapolis Federal Reserve president Neel Kashkari recently echoed those beliefs.Yet if a new Federal Reserve proposal goes through, Wells Fargo and other large banks might get even bigger and riskier, adding billions to their balance sheets that could increase the banks’ risk profiles.The Federal Reserve says the proposal, which specifies the amount and kind of debt that systemically important large banks must hold, could help make sure that those banks can be wound...

When it comes to residential mortgages, big banks are waving the white flag. Banks originated 74% of all mortgages in 2007, but their share fell to 52% in 2014, the most recent data available from the Mortgage Bankers Association. And it could go even lower. But even at these levels, the big bank backtrack is reshaping a lending landscape that’s already undergone seismic shifts since the housing bubble burst. While there’s widespread agreement that banks should have been reined in — and perhaps punished — after playing a major role in the housing bubble that helped tank the economy, the...

When Donald Trump heard that Ted Cruz had taken out a loan from Goldman Sachs (against his own investments, by the way), he lashed out at his rival. The loan proved that Cruz was owned by the banks! He could not be trusted! He'd just do Goldman's bidding! Oh my, how terrible! Yes, Cruz was clearly a crony of the big banks. This criticism caused the Cruz campaign to study Trump's own finances a bit. What they've discovered is downright shocking: Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz on Sunday said GOP front-runner Donald Trump owes “hundreds of millions or even billions”...

The Federal Reserve started raising official interest rates in December. But in the stress tests that large U.S. banks have to undergo, the central bank is hypothesizing that short-term Treasury yields could drop below zero. The European Central Bank and, since Friday, the Bank of Japan are trying it with policy benchmarks. Though negative U.S. interest rates are for now only in the Fed's worst-case scenario, they are becoming a plausible downturn assumption.