Page 193 - Bank Case Studies

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On the 10 anniversary of the financial crisis the Financial
Times commented that U.S. authorities had collected $150

billion (127.6 billion euros) in fines “from financial

institutions for shady dealings with subprime mortgages

since the beginning of the credit crisis in 2007.” (21)

These expenses don't even include the following bank costs:

• Since 2008 the six banks (Morgan Stanley, Goldman

Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and
Bank of America) have also had to repurchase

("buyback") $98.9 billion worth of bad mortgages they
stuffed into collapsed mortgage-backed securities they

sold to investors around the globe.

• Besides buybacks and settlement fines, there are

restitution and other compensation charges paid out to

meet government regulations implemented in

response to the housing crisis.

• There are no credible breakdowns of what banks call

"legal and litigation" expenses that breaks out the cost

of their outside counsel. Presumably, those charges are

well into the tens of billions of dollars.

• And the bad behavior of these too-big-to-jail banks

goes well beyond these credit crisis and mortgage-

related settlements. They have collectively paid tens of

billions more for all kinds of crimes. (20)

Of all the banks penalized since 2008, BofA had, according

to the FT, handed over $56 billion to cover the institution's