Tuesday, October 4, 2016

The Golden Age of Bank Predation @lamonicabuzz

Prior to 2008, banks were reptilian in a whole different way from today's manner since there was a free-for-all on eating each other as they conglomerated toward the national banks we see today.  During that same period they also enjoyed obscene liberties with securities to permit them to become Wall Street players and this is what brought Steven Spielberg's Temple of Doom.

Note:  thanks to Bill Clinton for executing the deregulation to permit it.  Great job, Mister Democrat.

Nothing has been done to fix any of it and we have reached the extreme now at which CNN's resident banker asslicker, Paul R. La Monica, decries the thought of breaking up Wells Fargo, easily the current obvious worst of the big banks.  (CNN:  Punish Wells Fargo? Yes. Break it up? No.)


My joyous portal into banking was via Citizens Bank / Royal Bank of Scotland and RBS nearly took down the UK economy by itself so that should give some idea of the benefit they bring the world.  It brought immense benefit to ex-Sir Fred Goodwin, the wildly-incompetent buffoon who engineered the travesty of the collapse with his testosterone-fueled acquisition of ABN-AMRO.  He lives in luxury to this day.  Most of England does not.

There's a most unusual tendency in Americans to deify executives, cops, soldiers, politicians, etc and imbue them with supernatural powers.  John Stumpf, CEO for Wells Fargo, talks like a five-year-old but people credit him with depth of vision.  Executive stupid speak may be a uniquely American art form ... but I digress.  In fact, Stumpf is just another well-connected chump with a business degree who got lucky.  That made him hundreds of millions of dollars but it sure as hell wasn't based on competence in banking.

We have seen the most glorious incompetence in banking since 2008 and the most glorious neglect of any action to do anything about it.  That obviously won't be helped by idiot cheerleaders like La Monica but there is one thing damn sure clear if the banks are broken up:  it will reduce our exposure to bad ones and take a bow Deutsche Bank.  Great job of wrecking the German economy.  Have a ball.

Note:  how Deutsche Bank grew to that size is unknown as my experience with European banking is strictly in terms of RBS and some extensions from that.  How RBS came to be that size in the UK is unknown whereas the bank predation in US was widespread and was almost a shark feeding frenzy while it lasted.  Any bank which was not turning over constant acquisitions was just not happening.

The predation stopped at that level because banks, as shown by Deutsche Bank, didn't get too big to fail but they did get too big to buy.  Imagine Citibank buying Wells Fargo for the hijinks that would cause on Wall Street, huh?


That amalgamation of corporate which has been taking place in all businesses in America since at least the sixties is specifically what evolved the upper class who enjoy unimaginable wealth in a world most will never see.  Many have deified such people but without looking much at what they did to get up there.  Monsanto is one example and Bayer owns them now.  That in turn gives Bayer ownership of Pepsi and Coca Cola.  Just why the fuck does any company need to own both?  That phenomenon can be seen in multiple of the conglomerates in which they host a great many unrelated companies simply for the purpose of putting a pyramid on the top of it where they skim off as much as they can.  As it happens, that makes a fuckload of money for not doing much of anything.  Enjoy the super yacht, Captain America.

No comments: