This is from David Graeber’s book, The Utopia of Rules:
As profits from banks and credit card companies derive more and more from “fees and penalties” levied on their customers – so much so that those living check to check can regularly expect to be charged eighty dollars for a five-dollar overdraft – financial firms have come to play by an entirely different set of rules.
I once attended a conference on the crisis in the banking system where I was able to have a brief, informal chat with an economist for one of the Bretton Woods institutions (probably best I not say which). I asked him why everyone was still waiting for even one bank official to be brought to trial for any act of fraud leading up to the crash of 2008.
Official: Well, you have to understand the approach taken by U.S. prosecutors to financial fraud is always to negotiate a settlement. They don’t want to have to go to trial. The upshot is always that the financial institution has to pay a fine, sometimes in the hundreds of millions, but they don’t actually admit to any criminal liability. Their lawyers simply say they are not going to contest the charge, but if they pay, they haven’t technically been found guilty of anything.
Me: So you’re saying if the government discovers that Goldman Sachs, for instance, or Bank of America, has committed fraud, they effectively just charge them a penalty fee.
Official: That’s right.
Me: So in that case . . . okay, I guess the real question is this: has there ever been a case where the amount the firm had to pay was more than the amount of money they made from the fraud itself?
Official: Oh no, not to my knowledge. Usually it’s substantially less.
Me: So what are we talking here, 50 percent?
Official: I’d say more like 20 to 30 percent on average. But it varies considerably case by case.
Me: Which means . . . correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that effectively mean the government is saying, “you can commit all the fraud you like, but if we catch you, you’re going to have to give us our cut”?
Official: Well, obviously I can’t put it that way myself as long as I have this job . . .
