Bank con exposed on MSNBC!

reply to post by CookieMonster09


money owed, thats the problem, sure you are owed money but doesnt mean that they are going to get that money so calling that an assest is wrong. they are basing there decision to loan a person money based on previous borrowing habits, doesnt mean they are going to get that money. the person could just say i'm not going to pay and renig on their original deal. course their are consqueces to that, but that shouldn't be considered an asset till its in the bank.

money owed, thats the problem, sure you are owed money but doesnt mean that they are going to get that money so calling that an assest is wrong. they are basing there decision to loan a person money based on previous borrowing habits, doesnt mean they are going to get that money. the person could just say i'm not going to pay and renig on their original deal. course their are consqueces to that, but that shouldn't be considered an asset till its in the bank.

Extending credit is not done on a handshake, at least not anymore. Perhaps in the old days. Extending credit is much more fact-based and scientific than it was in decades past. Credit scores, cash flow analysis, collateral analysis, etc. all play a role.

Loans aren't typically given willy nilly. When they are, that's when you see a bank collapse due to fraud, incompetence, and loose lending standards.

As far as not counting a Receivable as an Asset - well, you're talking about changing the fundamental rules of accounting. Good luck with that.

So basically what you are saying is that every bank out there can back every dollar they have loaned with money that they have on hand, I call B.S. There isn't enough money printed and there certainly isnt enough gold in circulation.... our system is based on a mound of debt which you could call money out of thin air so don't sit there and tell me there isnt a huge amount of fluff in the system.

Choose any bank you want. Pull up their balance sheet online. Look at the Assets column. Many banks have tens of millions -- some have billions in Assets.

If it's a publicly traded bank holding company, then the financial statements are audited - meaning they have the seal of approval from a Certified Public Accounting firm that vouches for the numbers.

The Asset column even gives you a breakdown of what the Assets consist of - cash, real estate, equipment, stock securities, etc. Banks have assets. To say otherwise is just plain nonsense.

Yep. But they leverage a huge amount of loans out of their actual assets, do they not. Last I heard it was 80x their assets.

No. Take a look at the Assets column. Then look at the Liabilities column. Subtract Liabilities from Assets, and you have the bank's Net Worth or "Equity". Basic accounting. Choose any bank you want. Pull up the balance sheet. Take a look.

Okay, let me give you one example. Take Comerica Bank, headquartered out of Dallas. Mid-sized bank - rather large, conservatively run. Been around for over 100 years. Not a Chase or a Wells Fargo, but certainly one of the top Main Street banks.

Total Assets:

$62,809,000,000
made up of $46,162,000,000 in loan assets
$ 9,388,000,000 in securities (investments)
$ 18,000,000 in other securities
$ 2,440,000,000 in interest-bearing deposits held at other banks
$ 154,000,000 in other investments

Liabilities:
Total Interest-Bearing Deposits: $41,525,000,000
Non-Interest Bearing Deposits: $12,900,000,000
Accrued Expenses and Other Liabilities: $1,285,000,00
Total Liabilities: $55,710,000,000

Assets Less Liabilities =

$62,809,000,000 less $55,710,000,000 = $7,099,000,000 (Shareholder's Equity).

Go to Comerica.com if you want to see their 2009 financial report.

[edit on 10-4-2010 by CookieMonster09]

reply to post by CookieMonster09

Extending credit is not done on a handshake, at least not anymore. Perhaps in the old days. Extending credit is much more fact-based and scientific than it was in decades past. Credit scores, cash flow analysis, collateral analysis, etc. all play a role.

Have you not heard of the sub-prime fiasco? Banks vigorously handing out loans to folks with a bad track record in the full knowledge the loans were unlikely to be repaid, knowing they'd still make a quick, fat profit by bundling said debts and selling them off to others as 'investments'?

No. Take a look at the Assets column. Then look at the Liabilities column. Subtract Liabilities from Assets, and you have the bank's Net Worth or "Equity". Basic accounting. Choose any bank you want. Pull up the balance sheet. Take a look.

I fear you have missed my point entirely. Either that or you've constructed a straw man.

Of course banks have equity calculated as assets minus liabilities. My point is quite different. On the back of said equity they are permitted to lend far far more than they hold. It's been that way for a long, long time. Watch the videos on the previous page. Except as time has gone on the ratio of equity to money leant has steadily increased to the point where the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has actually said 'why bother with keeping anything in reserve'!

As Yoda would say, "A sound financial system it is not".

Interesting thread..I have said this for a long time ...live within your means if you havnt got the money dont buy the product save rather than spend that way you dont need to borrow from a bank.


As far as I can see it greed for profits

[edit on 10-4-2010 by Ukplus]

reply to post by Freedom is Key


I don't think it will happen, sorry but I reckon by the time the majority wake up it will be too late.

Have you not heard of the sub-prime fiasco? Banks vigorously handing out loans to folks with a bad track record in the full knowledge the loans were unlikely to be repaid, knowing they'd still make a quick, fat profit by bundling said debts and selling them off to others as 'investments'?

Sub-prime mortgage brokers (not banks) vigorously handed out sub-prime loans, then packaged them up and sold them to the government and Wall Street banks that sold them as "investments". Most of these brokers (Thank God!) are out of business.

Big difference between a Main Street bank and a Wall Street bank. Main Street banks - those that did get caught up in the sub-prime crisis - have been shut down by the FDIC. And most of these failures have been in Florida, Vegas, California, Arizona, and Georgia where the big residential building boom took place. A big portion of the reason why these banks failed and are failing is because of simply supply and demand - no one is purchasing these new homes. Banks hold these toxic real estate assets on their books - And real estate isn't liquid.

On the back of said equity they are permitted to lend far far more than they hold. It's been that way for a long, long time.

Nope. Take a look at the Comerica example above. They have far more Assets than Liabilities. Basic math, my friend.

In the case of Comerica, they hold over $41 billion in deposits bearing interest, and $12.9 billion in non-interest bearing deposits. They have only $46 billion in loan assets. Do the math. They have plenty of deposits on hand to cover their loans.

[edit on 10-4-2010 by CookieMonster09]

reply to post by _SilentAssassin_


IMHO...

This was patently obvious in 2001.

But, not everyone apparently cares. Some of the points in this

video are overblown too. We all seem to have forgotten the

2 trillion in equity that went POOF from another huge past

scam - the internet bubble. THAT made me so angry, I divested

immediately from near all conventional assets.

We should all have asked repeatedly since 1981 - S & L scandal,

real estate bubble of the late 80's, 1987 stock market crash, 1992

recession, 1998 Asian financial crisis, etc ETC - INTO WHOSE POCKETS

DID THIS WEALTH LOSS GO? At least the video got that right -

the usual suspects, the top 0.1% connected to the govt, fed, corps,

and ruling plutocracy.

Every time I brung this up with the wife, coworkers, even some family

members - i got the usual 'oh phil you're such a paranoid conspiratorialist!'

look in their eyes.

Oh well!

reply to post by CookieMonster09

Big difference between a Main Street bank and a Wall Street bank.

Another straw man. No-one put them in the same bracket. But we are discussing the entire system as there are fundamental systemic weaknesses, not least due to the repeall of the Glass-Steagall Act, one of whose consequences was that Main Street banks were no longer forbidden to speculate on the stock markets!

Take a look at the Comerica example above. They have far more Assets than Liabilities. Basic math, my friend.

There is simply no logic to your argument. I have stated that the banks are permitted to lend far more than their assets and you respond by supplying an example of a bank that has more assets than liabilities!

You are still skirting the central issue entirely.

reply to post by drphilxr


Just show them this video.
I just showed this to my mum and I almost went bananas.
Her reaction was just totally impartial.
I told her "You can't have that type of attitude these people need to go to jail".
But It's no use, they simply won't get it.

That upsets me so much rrrrr

There is simply no logic to your argument. I have stated that the banks are permitted to lend far more than their assets and you respond by supplying an example of a bank that has more assets than liabilities! You are still skirting the central issue entirely.

Give me a single example of a bank that has 80 times more liabilities than it does assets. Provide me proof. I have already given you a simple example of a typical Main Street bank that quite obviously doesn't fall in this category.

You made the outrageous claim: "Yep. But they leverage a huge amount of loans out of their actual assets, do they not. Last I heard it was 80x their assets."

Now prove it. I have already given you a simple example - Comerica Bank - that clearly is mainstream - and that doesn't leverage their liabilities to assets at 80 to 1.

Another straw man. No-one put them in the same bracket. But we are discussing the entire system as there are fundamental systemic weaknesses, not least due to the repeall of the Glass-Steagall Act, one of whose consequences was that Main Street banks were no longer forbidden to speculate on the stock markets!

Not at all. You can't mix apples and oranges. If you want to lump Goldman Sachs in with your local small town bank, go ahead. The two are not the same, my friend. Be specific about who you are leveling accusations before you paint these broad, sweeping generalizations.

The only banks that engaged in violations of the Glass-Steagall would be the big banks that have investment arms - Chase for example. Chase is hardly a representative of your typical hometown bank. They are a monolith.

[edit on 10-4-2010 by CookieMonster09]

delete

this

[edit on 10-4-2010 by cpdaman]

reply to post by CookieMonster09

Give me a single example of a bank that has 80 times more liabilities than it does assets. Provide me proof.

You continue to respond in ways that mean we are talking at cross-purposes. You are fixated on assets vs liabilities. I have been talking all along about the loans issued by the banks which generate their assets.

The point is that the degree of leveraging means it is now so much easier for the banks to find themselves in a position where they cannot fulfill depositors' requests for withdrawals. If the banks were permitted only to lend, say, twice as much as their assets a catastrophic bank run would be highly unlikely. As things are there is systemic weakness as the banks only hold a tiny fraction of deposits in reserve.

Not at all. You can't mix apples and oranges. If you want to lump Goldman Sachs in with your local small town bank, go ahead. The two are not the same, my friend. Be specific about who you are leveling accusations before you paint these broad, sweeping generalizations.

The problem is you are again responding to what I have not said. Several large banks with local branches also have investment arms due to the repeal of G-S. I'll put it as plainly as I know how: banks that took deposits from the man in the street used to be forbidden by law from speculating in the stock markets; investment banks were entirely separate entities. It made sense. Repealing these laws did not — unless banking profits took precedence over systemic robustness.

The point is that the degree of leveraging means it is now so much easier for the banks to find themselves in a position where they cannot fulfill depositors' requests for withdrawals.

Nonsense. Most retail bank branches only keep on deposit - in the form of hard currency cash - as to what the anticipated demand would be for any given day. Naturally, it has a lot more on deposit than it keeps in the retail branch at any given day. I have yet to hear of anyone walking into a branch and having trouble getting a small deposit withdrawn. The issue only arises when someone wants $50,000 cash withdrawn at any given time. The bank doesn't keep that kind of cash on deposit - for safety reasons, for one, and because the demand isn't there.

Regarding your bogus "80-1 liabilities to assets" claim, I again would ask you to show me one single bank that has this on their balance sheet. One bank. You can't - unless they are already out of business. It's a totally bogus statement that you should retract until you can provide concrete proof. Banks aren't leveraged 80-1. Banks have assets - receivables in the form of loan assets, liquid cash assets, investments, ownership in real estate, and fixed assets such as computers, equipment, etc. You can't tell me that banks don't have significant assets. They do. Just look at their balance sheet.

Regarding Glass-Steagall - Yes, it should be repealed. However, the main issue with banks right now is the preponderance of toxic real estate assets on their books. You can argue that the bubble was caused by banks mixing speculative investment products with retail banking, but really - in my opinion - the reason for the number of bank failures is one thing: speculative residential real estate loans, both construction and permanent financing (especially to house flippers and sub-prime borrowers) - mostly in the Southeast and the Southwest.

cookie monster i believe he is talking about

fractional reserve lending

you know the whole reason banks can have runs on them

and the whole reason they can lend much more than they have

just look at the reserve requirment laws!

it's clear to anyone that the only reason banks are solvent now (after the scare) is because fas 157 was overturned at "gun point" and mark to market was replaced by mark to fantasy! but again i don't have a huge problem with this......so yes large amount of bad debts have to be written off.....but the can was kicked down the road

the problem i have is that no one has been prosecuted .....no one has been jailed......and the reform is DRAFTED by the BANKS!!!! and then MOST bubble vision passes on this info from a persective that frames it as being "good for the economy" BLAH BLAH .....it's a sad joke.....

.and the economy is going to pay.......there is not a MAGIC GUARD RAIL that keeps our standard of living from imploding......the economy has survived for so long because first we were an industrial/ manufacturing giant....now we are a consumer nation (living on credit ....most of which is based on asset bubbles )........don't take our high living standard as a GIVEN.....perhaps if we have a few depressions in our recent memory we may actually be up in arms.....that being said we do have the knowledge to vote em all out in novemeber.....but who are they gonna replace em with ...more special intrest stooges



[edit on 10-4-2010 by cpdaman]

reply to post by CookieMonster09

Regarding your bogus "80-1 liabilities to assets" claim, I again would ask you to show me one single bank that has this on their balance sheet. One bank. You can't - unless they are already out of business. It's a totally bogus statement that you should retract until you can provide concrete proof. Banks aren't leveraged 80-1.

This is taken from a study on banks with exposure in Eastern Europe:

There are several banks included in the study that:

have ADRs
have credit exposure to high sovereign risk nations including amounts to 762% and higher of the total tangible equity with the total non-performing and sub-standard (but performing) exposure standing at 96% of the tangible equity.
have Texas Ratios approaching nearly 100%
have NPAs growing nearly 500%
have leverage rations of over 80x
are trading at BV multiples that apparently ignore the potential credit contagion, etc.

Source: The depression is already here for some members of Europe, and it just might be contagious!

At the drop of a hat I have only found data relating to Western European banks. But the evidence is clear: this is the reality.

Most retail bank branches only keep on deposit - in the form of hard currency cash - as to what the anticipated demand would be for any given day. Naturally, it has a lot more on deposit than it keeps in the retail branch at any given day.

They LEND OUT far more than they receive. It's not just an issue of cash on hand!

I have yet to hear of anyone walking into a branch and having trouble getting a small deposit withdrawn.

It only becomes noticeable when a higher number of people than usual make larger withdrawal requests. As it happens there's even a current thread on the matter:
Is a run on American banks in progress? You be the judge

...though I hope it's not true and my point remains theoretical (though sadly still a real possibility).

This is taken from a study on banks with exposure in Eastern Europe: ...........have Texas Ratios approaching nearly 100% have NPAs growing nearly 500%

Banks with exposure in Eastern Europe? Huh? My fault. I thought we were referring to the American banking system.

Any bank with non-performing assets ("NPA") growing nearly 500% would be shut down by the FDIC. Same with the Texas ratio.

There are still plenty of good, strong banks in the U.S. I gave you the example of Comerica, which is a conservatively run, well-managed mainstream Main Street bank. Wells Fargo is also well-managed. I have misgivings about Bank of America and Chase, given their size and incompetent management.

Banks can't operate on 80-1 liabilities to assets ratios. First, the shareholders wouldn't invest in their stock if that were the case. Secondly, I still find it awfully dubious that you are unable to provide me with a single bank that has these ratios. At least, not any American-based banks. You have to go to some alleged "study" on banks in Eastern Europe to find any banks with these kinds of ratios. I can't speak to the regulatory apparatus for banks in Eastern Europe.

At the drop of a hat I have only found data relating to Western European banks. But the evidence is clear: this is the reality.

Maybe in Eastern Europe. But I wouldn't take your word for it. When you can provide me with a specific bank with 80-1 liabilities to assets ratios, I might listen. Until then, I will take it that your only source is some vague unsubstantiated study on Eastern European banks - hardly credible. What reputable authority did the study, by the way?

They LEND OUT far more than they receive. It's not just an issue of cash on hand!

Proof, please. Comerica does not. Profitable banks do not operate in this manner. The proof is in the numbers. Show me a balance sheet of a single bank that has more liabilities than assets, and I will show you a bank that will be shut down by the FDIC in short order. Banks that bleed red don't stay in business very long. They either get shut down, merge with a stronger bank, or the bank is broken up into pieces and sold.

reply to post by CookieMonster09


Again you have responded without reading what was said carefully. Those are Western European banks with exposure in Eastern Europe.

I have shown that this kind of practise is real.

Apologies that I don't have the balance sheets of American banks up my sleeve.

The main point is that the repeal of the G-S Act opened the door to the current madness. The only thing that has kept the system alive is the creation of vast quantities of new money. The game is up — and as the OP video explained, it was nothing but a con all along.

Again you have responded without reading what was said carefully. Those are Western European banks with exposure in Eastern Europe.

It may be real in Eastern Europe. It is not real here in America. (By the way, the Glass-Steagall Act applied only to American banks, not European.) My guess is that these Eastern European banks got caught holding bundles of investments in toxic sub-prime real estate loans that went bust. That, or they had very lax lending standards when investing in their own backyard.

The jig is up - For some banks. We have seen a plethora of banks shut down in the U.S. - Mostly in the Southeast and Southwest. More to follow. Lax lending standards. Sub-prime loans. The FDIC is cleaning up the mess - Thankfully, without taxpayer dollars (at least not yet).

The madness started when the politicians decided that anyone and everyone was entitled to the American dream of owning one's own house. The pressure was put on the banks to lessen lending standards - Hence the madness of sub-prime loans, interest only loans, no down payment loans, and all the rest. This has stopped now for some time, and it's much more difficult to obtain a loan without the proper documentation and a 20% down payment. We have swung in the other direction - where lending is so tight that it is crippling the economy.

Kudos to MSNBC for this, S+F. Too bad you won't see this on Faux News, guess they're too deep into the pockets of their corporate masters.

Jesse Ventura guest hosted for Larry King last night on Larry King Live and had Ron Paul on it, also made several comments about the banks and the Fed.