The title is intentionally ironic in that it is referring to banks that are the robbers, robbing its citizens.
There are numerous gems of insider information that is rarely mentioned in mainstream media, the propaganda media for the unwashed masses. Unfortunately, they don't provide any documentation. But, I'm sure that these well informed authors know of what they write.
...the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. For banks that have filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion,....***********************
...banks take risks, get paid for the upside, and then transfer the downside to shareholders, taxpayers, and even retirees. In order to rescue the banking system, the Federal Reserve, for example, put interest rates at artificially low levels; as was disclosed recently, it also has provided secret loans of $1.2 trillion to banks. The main effect so far has been to help bankers generate bonuses (rather than attract borrowers) by hiding exposures.************************
The largest, most sophisticated banks have become expert at remaining one step ahead of regulators – constantly creating complex financial products and derivatives that skirt the letter of the rules. In these circumstances, more complicated regulations merely mean more billable hours for lawyers, more income for regulators switching sides, and more profits for derivatives traders.The authors seem bewildered by the contradictions of these bailouts and investors who continue to invest in the large banks:
Why does any investment manager buy the stocks of banks that pay out very large portions of their earnings to their employees?
...Why do portfolio and pension-fund managers hope to receive impunity from their investors? Isn’t it obvious to investors that they are voluntarily transferring their clients’ funds to the pockets of bankers? Aren’t fund managers violating both fiduciary responsibilities and moral rules? Are they missing the only opportunity we have to discipline the banks and force them to compete for responsible risk-taking?They don't understand why the alter of the market at which all capitalists worship is skewed to serve a narrow ruling class of financiers. The latter have concentrated so much wealth and power in their hands that they are now able to control the market, the economy, and the government (which they essentially own) to serve their appetite for more wealth and more power. Now, it is no longer just workers who are getting screwed as in earlier stages of capitalism, but the middle class is also, and they don't like it.
This development poses a final contradiction for the ruling financial aristocracy: they are creating their own destruction--without the support of the middle class they are nothing.
