The Wall Street Settlements and the New Aristocracy | Global Research

The Wall Street Settlements and the New Aristocracy | Global Research

Last week, Bank of America became the latest major financial
institution to announce a multi-billion-dollar settlement with US
regulators of charges related to the 2008 financial meltdown. In a
settlement worked out with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the bank
agreed to pay $5.83 billion in fines and buy back $3.2 billion in
mortgage-backed securities from the government-sponsored mortgage
finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to whom it sold the toxic
assets in the run-up to the Wall Street crash. The settlement involves
the largest fine levied by a single federal regulator in US history.

The agreement adds to the more than $100 billion in fines that have
been levied by US regulators on major American and global banks since
the financial crisis, more than half of which has been imposed over the
past year.

The record size of the settlements points to the pervasiveness and
scale of the criminality of the banks and their top officials. And yet,
not a single leading bank executive has been criminally charged.

This is not for lack of evidence. The 2011 reports by the Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission document in considerable detail the fact that the
2008 crash was triggered by criminal wrongdoing by bank executives. Carl
Levin, the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations said that the committee had found “a financial snake pit
rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.”