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When it comes to big banks' bad behavior and the fines they pay to settle "allegations" – which are actually civil charges and which would be criminal charges if applied to any other business or in any parallel universe – things aren't even close to what they seem.
Sure the headlines scream victory, at least monetary victory, for some ripped-off consumers, some hard-charging regulators, and our vaunted (NOT) Justice Department.
We think we hear the ching-ching of the Treasury Department's cash registers ringing as they collect billions of dollars from miscreant, monster banks.
We think we can hear victorious regulators popping champagne corks as they celebrate settlement money coming in to prop up their budgets so they can keep going after these lawbreakers.
We think we can hear the cling-clank of consumers – who've been set up like bowling pins to be knocked down until the change falls out of their pockets at the feet of slobbering banksters – getting some of their stolen money back.
If that is what you think you hear, you're tone deaf.
Here's what's really going on…
Big Banks: What the Settlements Really Mean for Consumers
The headlines, like the ones that screamed JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) was paying a record $13 billion to settle misdeeds that may have accidentally contributed to the credit crisis and the Great Recession that maybe forever imposed on America's middle class and perennial underclass a new set of dream shackles, are BS. And I don't mean back-stabbing.
Ripped-off consumers don't get made whole. Regulators don't keep a dime of what they extract. Only the U.S. Treasury rings its register on any regular basis… and you thought the deficit was declining on its own!
And the big banks? Not only aren't they paying what the headlines trumpet, most of what they do pay, and far more disgustingly, a lot of what they say they are going to pay in restitution to consumers, they write off on their taxes!
That's right, after they neither admit nor deny doing what they did, and settle on paying fines and other forms of remunerative compensation to prove they didn't do anything wrong, they write most of those "expenses" off.
Of course those write-offs reduce their taxable income. So the public's screwed again.
You didn't know that? If not, don't beat yourself up. Not a lot of people do.
But Congress does.
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About the Author
Shah Gilani is the Event Trading Specialist for Money Map Press. In Zenith Trading Circle Shah reveals the worst companies in the markets - right from his coveted Bankruptcy Almanac - and how readers can trade them over and over again for huge gains.Shah is also the proud founding editor of The Money Zone, where after eight years of development and 11 years of backtesting he has found the edge over stocks, giving his members the opportunity to rake in potential double, triple, or even quadruple-digit profits weekly with just a few quick steps. He also writes our most talked-about publication, Wall Street Insights & Indictments, where he reveals how Wall Street's high-stakes game is really played.