Remember when bankers were honorable people?

What's my bitch with the banks?  The banks have a choke hold on this country.  The world, even. They sneeze, we get a cold.  They devise a new way to squeeze a few more bucks out of us, they drop a few $$$ on the right congressional committee chair, and the rules are changed.  The regulators go blind.  


Banks have never directly screwed me.  When the economy went down the toilet in '08 I only had a couple of lots financed and I was able to get out from under those.  All the contract homes I've built since 9/11 have been financed with the loans in the customer's name, not mine.  I won't sign a (business) loan agreement with a bank because they're 100% loaded in the banks favor.  For example, they have the right to call the note due, at any time, for any reason, even if I'm current with all provisions of the loan.  Doesn't matter.  And yes, I know people they've pulled the rug out from under.  "He who has the gold makes the rules."  Personally I deal only with member-owned USAA for all my banking and insurance needs.  My credit record is spotless.


Indirectly the banks have screwed all of us. Beginning roughly 20 years ago they legally rigged "the system", enabling them to do whatever they wanted.  "Financial engineering" it's called.  All the unregulated "derivatives" and "credit default swaps" that made the news when the world went over the edge....those were HUGE profit makers for the banks (to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars), yet they added nothing of value to the economy.   When the dust settled they still had their money, and individually they still had their hundreds of millions in bonuses, while we were left with the bail-out tab.  Yet I know very well-off people (doctors) who today still find it difficult to secure financing to build a new home.  As a builder that hurts me and my family.


And it gets worse.  On paper the banks were broke in '09, so the Treasury "loaned" them billions of dollars, supposedly to "prime the pump" and get lending to businesses and hiring going again.  But that's not what the banks did with the money.  Instead they took the 0% interest "loans" (free money) and bought Treasury bonds paying 3%.*  It was simply a money transfer from the taxpayers to the banks.  Our government was either in bed with the bankers, or stupid.  Think you or I could get a deal like that?  HA!  Never heard of that, did you?  It was just a scam to re-capitalize the banks at taxpayer expense, without the taxpayers knowing it.  All we were told was "the deficit grew".  


And nothing has changed.  All the "banking reforms" that have been legislated recently to "correct past wrongs" are a farce.  They were gutted by the bank's lobbyists before what was left ever became law.  A little hand slap here and there, but always with a wink, too.   The number of banksters prosecuted for committing fraud?  You can count them on one hand.  Obama's recently announced effort to go after those responsible and bring them to justice?....I'll believe it when I see it!  And why did it take him 3 years to decide to go after the crooks?  Could the upcoming elections have anything to do with his newly discovered indignation?  "It plays good in Peoria." Again, I'll believe it when I see it.


We need to reign the bankers back in.  While I generally don't like excessive regulation in our lives, the banks have proven without a shadow of a doubt that left alone and without regulations (with teeth), they will act like drunken sailors on shore leave.  Trust a banker**?  I'd rather trust a crack whore with my bank account and PIN number.


S


*  Suggest you read Confidence Men:  Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by WSJ writer Ron Suskind.  He names names, lists dates, places, directly quotes conversations....very informative.


** I'm talking about the Ivory Tower bankers at the BIG institutions, NOT the little loan officer or teller at the corner branch bank.