These are the banks we taxpayers saved and who continue to exist mainly via taxpayer subsidy and regulatory forebearance.

These are the banks whose current profits come mainly from insider trading and price manipulation, subsidized by free money from the taxpayers via the Fed.

The only silver lining here is the great theater that comes with watching Republicans become anti-elite populists again, as they try to paint the Democrats as the party of Wall Street (which is of course true, but only half true, and not in the way the wingnuts imply).

The show is almost as funny as back when Enron imploded, and the cons tried to blame it on Clinton.

Just ask the most honorable Luo Yi.

I do wish we'd let them pay back the TARP money, and put it straight into deficit reduction. Unlike what Barney Frank wants to do, in using it to reinflate the housing bubble. And our monetary policy really is ridiculous, but there's no way we'll ever tighten it. Invest in anything but dollars, is the policy of all foreigners, looking at this coming train wreck.

I don't remember the cons blaming Enron on Clinton. Wouldn't be shocked or anything, just don't remember that.

my impression is that bonsus are NOT going to set records this year.

do you have a source?

<link>

for someone to discover my solution, which will simultaneously reverse the slide in housing prices (without creating a bubble), fix Social Security, end our recession, and keep inflation from re-igniting.

Not wanting the suspense to kill anyone, I'll let the cat out of the bag. Significantly liberalize legal immigration. Maybe tax it too. Hell, if we add in special incentives for doctors, we might even fix health care while we're at it.

Conservatives should love it. More freedom! Reduced labor costs!

Liberals should love it. Help more poor people! Let's have some real re-distribution!

What? What?

The just posted a profit of $3.6 billion for the latest quarter. <link> It there any wonder that they have money to throw around for fat bonuses? It still pales next to Exxon-Mobil for fat profits though. It looks like preditory lending practices are highly profitable.

Pay back TARP. Golly, that'll cover, like, 5% of the $14 trillion in measurable subsidies and guarantees proferred to the big banks. And that's just the measureable parts.

Getting $2 trillion in bailout funds and another $12 in guarantees and bailouts of the other players (like AIG, money market funds, FDIC, and the FNMA agencies) when you are on the verge of implosion and no one else will touch you? That's a lifeline.

Getting zero interest loans while also using those loans to launder your toxic debt onto the taxpayers' balance sheet, all the while using those loans to finance yet more highly leveraged insider trades and speculation? That's a sweet deal.

But... achieving complete capture of the regulatory system, monetary policy system, fiscal policy system, legislative system and media so you can piss on people while you defraud them, and tell them it's for their own good? That's priceless.

Don't remember the Clinton/Enron meme? What, did you take a BOTF break during most of 2001 and 2002?

After the cons kick all the immigrants out, they will need a new scapegoat, at which time we will let them all back in.

Gonna be damn funny though when the fruit pickers demand to be paid in pesos....

The big money is in insider trading these days. Better yet if you can get bankrolled by the Fed for your stake.

The story is yet to be told, and may never get fully told of course, but watch for the terms like "flash trading", "front running", and "naked shorting" to get a sense of where the profits are coming from.

Goldman Sachs was certainly helped with the removal of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers; and the numerous banks failures, such as WaMu, have allowed those banks who remain such as JP Morgan to improve their profits. It doesn't hurt either that the Federal Reserve is holding the banks borrowing costs down at record low levels. The Federal Reserve has its fingers crossed that the dollar won't tank, but it has no idea as to what will really happen. It appears that Ben is as much in the dark about the dollar as Alan was about the housing bubble. 

i saw it on the front page of the WSJ print edition after i posed my question in fray.

even though per capita pay is remaining equal to 2007 results, its still astonishing that the combination of more employees plus bonus increases from 2008 levels makes it a record year.

i wonder if the article will shame them into retrenchment

Yeah he's slicker, taller, and smiles more....well dubya smiled too but I think it was part of a parkinsonian mask...anyway Obama is real good at intending to fix stuff for the Public eye whereas none of it is getting fixed at all. Wall street continues to laugh in his face.

jo

1.) There is no such thing as corporate benevolence

2.) There is no such thing as corporate shame.