America's TBTF Bank Subsidy From Taxpayers: $83 Billion Per Year

Zero Hedge ^ | 20 February 2013 | Tyler Durden

[Lorianne]

Day after day, whenever anyone challenges the TBTF banks' scale, they are slammed down with a mutually assured destruction message that limitations would impair profitability and weaken the country's position in global finance.

So what if you were to discover, based on Bloomberg's calculations, that the largest banks aren't really profitable at all? What if the billions of dollars they allegedly earn for their shareholders were almost entirely a gift from U.S. taxpayers? The stunning truth is that the top-five banks account for $64 billion of an implicit subsidy based on the ludicrous (but entirely real) logic that:

The banks that are potentially the most dangerous can borrow at lower rates, because creditors perceive them as too big to fail. Perhaps this realization will increase shareholder demands - or even political furore? The market discipline might not please executives, but it would certainly be an improvement over paying banks to put us in danger.

[PGR88]

Our money is corrupted, which allows 1000 other govt - sposored evils to occur.

Fix our money, starting with the Federal Reserve, and you automatically fix many other problems in our economy and society.

[jiggyboy]

The banking system is functionally insolvent, and has become more or less a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. government.