Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
On January 16 of this year, Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, delivered a speech on the continuing threat to the U.S. economy posed by the too-big-to-fail banks. Fisher said: “I submit that these institutions, as a result of their privileged status, exact an unfair tax upon the American people. Moreover, they interfere with the transmission of monetary policy and inhibit the advancement of our nation’s economic prosperity.”
As part of his talk, Fisher presented a chart showing the Frankenbank nature of the five largest banks in the U.S. – JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. Cumulatively, these five banks are the parent to 19,654 subsidiaries or affiliates while their nondeposit liabilities total over $4.1 trillion – a figure equal to 26.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.
On July 23, 2013, the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, chaired by Senator Sherrod Brown, held a hearing titled: “Examining Financial Holding Companies: Should Banks Control Power Plants, Warehouses, and Oil Refineries?” (Hopefully, that was simply a rhetorical question.)
At the hearing, Timothy Weiner, Global Risk Manager of the giant beer brewer, MillerCoors LLC, told the Senate subcommittee that the largest U.S. banks had gained “effective control” of the London Metals Exchange (LME) and were using their cartel powers to hold up deliveries of aluminum and push up its price.
Weiner said: “…the aluminum we are purchasing is being held up in warehouses controlled and owned by U.S. bank holding companies, who are members of the LME, and set the rules for their own warehouses. These bank holding companies are slowing the load-out of physical aluminum from these warehouses to ensure that they receive increased rent for an extended period of time. Aluminum users like MillerCoors are being forced to wait in some cases over 18 months to take physical delivery due to the LME warehouse practices or pay the high physical premium to get aluminum today.”
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