One of the realities of banking is that there are fees involved. And, interestingly, the bigger the bank, the bigger the fees. It is rather frustrating to read about bailouts of big banks, only to find that very large percentages of their profits come from fees. So, not only are your taxes going to help prop up these big banks, but you also prop them up through the fees you pay. The Service Employees International Union estimates (since banks don’t reveal it) that J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America all make more than 70% of their profits from …read more

– Board of Directors Caves to Gov’t Pressure to Limit Pay, Require All Citigroup Execs To Wear Frilly Lace Thongs To Work –
Under government pressure Citigroup agreed to sell off one of it’s profitable business units so it could concentrate on losing massive sums of money in its banking activities.
The bank’s commodity trading arm, Phibro, was sold to Occidental Petroleum for what analysts termed “a pittance.”
For Citibank execs who don’t understand economic jargon, a “pittance” is generally considered “a small sum well below what something is worth.”
At issue was an agreement with Phibro’s chief trader Andrew Hall to …read more