Marcy Kaptur: “The greatest power a banker has is to create money. Banks can also abuse that awesome power. And it seems like the…”

“The greatest power a banker has is to create money. Banks can also abuse that awesome power. And it seems like the bigger the banks are the more they abuse that power. Let me relate a vivid example: It was over 5 years ago that America was hit with the great Wall Street-induced recession. Five years later, those banks are still paying our people--their customers--almost nothing if customers have deposits or certificates of deposit with those institutions. That is harming seniors across this country. That is harming people who are trying to make a go of it. It is harming investors. Meanwhile, banks continue to post huge profits, especially the very biggest ones that are market controllers--for example, JPMorgan Chase, just in the last year, took $21 billion in profit; Wells Fargo, $19 billion; Goldman Sachs, $7.5 billion in profits; Citigroup, $7.5 billion; Bank of America, $4 billion--while Americans continue to struggle to make ends meet and recuperate from that Great Recession. Now, it has been reported this week that JPMorgan Chase will agree to a $13 billion settlement of the civil suit filed by the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Housing Finance Agency in order to resolve several investigations into their fraudulent mortgage securities business.…”