On Wednesday, five of the largest banks in the world agreed to pay a combined $5.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury and then pleaded guilty to a series of criminal charges that they had operated for years as a secret cabal to manipulate currency exchange rates, in many cases directly ripping off clients in the process.
The new felons are J.P. Morgan Chase (the largest bank in the U.S. by assets), Citigroup (the third largest by assets), Barclays (the largest U.K. bank), UBS (the largest bank in Switzerland) and the Royal Bank of Scotland (a bank in Scotland).
Now, just like Martha Stewart—who was not convicted of any Wall Street wrongdoing—the executives of these banks will all share a cell together at Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia.
Except, of course, they won't. The overwhelming majority of the banks' top executives will never go to jail. Aside from the fines, which the banks will happily pay up out of their ample reserves, the banks will face no real consequences for their actions.
TVNL Comment: And let's not forget the four year incarceration of that dangerous criminal Leona Helmsley. Double standard? No, - just the power of financial institutions at work in corporate America.