Monday, March 1, 2010
15 Years Ago, the Combined Assets of the 6 Biggest Banks Totaled 17% of GDP... By 2006, 55% ... Now, 63%
You know the big banks have gotten bigger.
As Rolfe Winkler noted last September:
For the big have gotten even bigger since the start of the financial crisis. At the end of 2007, the Big Four banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — held 32 percent of all deposits in FDIC-insured institutions. As of June 30th, it was 39 percent.
(If the image doesn’t load, click here.)
But Simon Johnson gives an even broader perspective on how big the too big to fails have gotten:
Fifteen years ago, the combined assets of our six biggest banks totaled 17 percent of our GDP. By 2006, that number was 55 percent. Right now, it stands at 63 percent.
Johnson also points out that:
The big four have half of the market for mortgages and two-thirds of the market for credit cards. Five banks have over 95 percent of the market for over-the-counter derivatives. Three U.S. banks have over 40 percent of the global market for stock underwriting.
As I've previously noted, the government created the mega-giants (they are not the product of free market competition), and their very size destroys the real economy like a massive black hole destroys the matter around it.
And as Johnson and many others have pointed out, the very size of the giant banks enables them to easily capture politicians ... about as easily as the Great Attractor captures galaxies.
6 comments:
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This certinaly cannot be a good sign thats for sure.
ReplyDeleteJess
www.total-anonymity.cz.tc
Great research. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI have question though.
You say the Bank's assets are equal to a portion of GDP but GDP is an annual monetary exchange of goods and services so are you saying the banks annual business is that much of GDP?
Shouldn't you compare the ASSETS of a bank to the total ASSETS (wealth) of the nation for a more oranges to oranges comparison?
In any case obviously those banks are too big like so many industries with virtual monopolies and we need antitrust actions in MANY industries now not just banking.
Want to research something else interesting?
Research how much of public companies stock are ACTUALLY owned by small concentrations of wealth holders not just by their direct stock ownership (which must be reported) but through large private investment houses like Blackstone who are reinvesting for the same unnamed private people.
I would bet you would find that many large companies are secretly owned by a couple of people who do it through these private investment funds while claiming they don't REALLY have control over that stock.
Vivzizi
Is it okay that we are the United States of Corporate America?
ReplyDeleteUntil EVERYONE starts talking and blogging and marching for Campaign Reform we are just spinning our wheels discussing anything that might challenge the special interests.
ReplyDeleteThis is just another case of special interests having their way over the best interests of the American people. Does that surprise anyone?
The will of the senate is the will of the special interests.
NOTHING will change unless we the people change it.
http://www.fairelectionsnow.org/volunteer/petition (FENA)
http://change-congress.org/
sign the petition
Criticism of any class of people as a whole?
ReplyDeleteWho would do that?
It can't be the upper 10,000 who are taking over our democracy, can it?
why, when you have all the money you could possibly spend, and all the Things youcould want, would you wan to kill the golden goose?
i mean all tha's left would be Power.
And what's the good of that?
Do like Andrew Jackson and bust them up...Today!
ReplyDelete