Before It’s NewsOver the last several years, a new oath has appeared in the world of finance as global investment banks have been hauled in front of Senate committees, Congressional panels, various regulatory bodies, and (what always used to be the harshest of judges) the public: the Hypocritic Oath.
It begins thus: First, admit no wrong.
In just the past two years, JPMorgan alone has paid some $7 billion in fines for a series of transgressions, including a whopping $5.29 billion fine over the robo-signing scandal, a further $300 million for misleading investors about the quality of mortgages underlying MBS securities, $150 million over risky structured investments, $230 million over the alleged rigging of various bond auction processes, and $153 million for misleading investors in one of those oh-so-common allow-a-hedge-fund-to-select-a-portfolio-of-bonds-to-sell-to-investors-that-they-then-short scams.
In most of these cases, the bank paid to settle the charges “without admitting or denying the allegations”.
Now, before anybody assumes this is another of those “bash JPMorgan” diatribes, it isn’t.
The Hypocritic Oath has been adopted by a multitude of banks in recent years and, like the Fifth Amendment, once it was rolled out, it seems to have been accepted absolutely without question (though the skeptics out there will naturally wonder why someone would pay a fine of several hundred million dollars when they had done nothing wrong — those pesky skeptics just can’t mind their own business, I guess).
Way back in November 2011, Citi agreed to a $285 million fine whilst neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing — something the judge in the case took issue with:
(CNN Money): But why would Citi agree to such a payment and reforms if they didn’t violate regulations? This conundrum is not a new one for Judge [Jed] Rakoff and one he raised in an SEC settlement case two years ago involving Bank of America. In that case, although Bank of America had originally neither admitted nor denied the violations, when the case came under scrutiny by Rakoff, Bank of America went ahead and denied.
Just a cost of doing business.
Just like the Mafia would kick up a certain percentage of their loot to the ones above.
That might of been a bad comparison, since the Mafia had way more scruples and decency than our corrupt, out of control, terrorist government.
You’re absolutely correct. Even the Mafia wouldn’t put turd world, newly media veneered, cannibals in your daughter’s classroom and eventually between her legs! To the contrary.
If they paid 7 billion in fines, the crimes must have netted them 70 billion.
ADD MANIPULATION OF THE COMMODITIES MARKETS TO THEIR RESUME/RAP SHEET. THE MARKETS ARE LIKE Fukushima, TICK TOCK, TICK,TOCK
These are not fines. They’re the governments ‘cut’ of what is probably a trillion dollar fraud profit. Of course this money will now go for millions of bullets, hundreds of armored vehicles and crates of tactical equipment to be used against the very people that got screwed into poverty by JP Morgue-an .