Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail

I guess we all remember Matt Taibbi's April 2010 expose of Goldman Sachs, "The Great American Bubble Machine"  that became an immediate "must read" for all the obscenely-paid social parasites inhabiting Wall Street and environs, whose "jobs" mostly consisted of spinning gold from straw like their mentor, Rumpelstiltskin.  [If you're one of the few who haven't read it, click here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405]

Well, now, Matt Taibbi's done it again in a new expose entitled "Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail" and it's guaranteed to be this year's "must-read" for the remaining parasites--those who haven't already fled in disgust or have joined the ranks of the tens of thousands who been fired.

When I finished reading it, I was actually nauseous--I felt like vomiting--from outrage and anger at the  institutionalized theft, fraud and corruption on an unprecedented, multi-billion dollar scale that has not only gone unpunished but has actually been rewarded by the United States government.

A few choice excerpts:

...Bank of America torched dozens of institutional investors with billions in worthless loans, repeatedly refused to abide by contractual obligations to buy them back, evaded hundreds of millions in local fees and taxes, pushed tens of thousands of people into foreclosure using phony documents, ignored multiple court orders to stop its illegal robo-signing, and exploited President Obama's signature mortgage-relief program. The bank fixed the bids on bonds for schools and cities and utilities all over America, and even conspired to try to game the game itself – by fixing global interest rates!...

So what does the government do about a rogue firm like this, one that inflates market-wrecking bubbles, commits mass fraud and generally treats the law like its own personal urinal cake? Well, it goes without saying that you rescue that "admitted felon" at all costs – even if you have to spend billions in taxpayer money to do it...

Bank of America didn't pay a dime in federal taxes last year. Or the year before. In fact, they got a $1 billion refund last year. They claimed it was because they had pretax losses of $5.4 billion in 2010. They paid out $35 billion in bonuses and compensation that year. You do the math.

Bank of America should have gone out of business back in 2008...

This, in essence, is the business model underlying Too Big to Fail: massive growth based on huge volumes of high-risk loans, coupled with lots of fraud and cutting corners, followed by huge payouts to executives. Then, with the company on the verge of collapse, the inevitable state rescue.  In this whole picture, the only money that's ever "real" is the fat bonuses the executives cash out of the bank at the end of each year...

Full text--warning: not for the faint of heart: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314


Jagor