Banks - Behavior unchanged over the last century

[panzerfaust]

...the Freedmen’s Savings Bank...

...aimed to encourage the newly-freed slaves to set aside a portion of their wages by giving them a financial institution they could trust...black men sat upon its advisory boards and were hired as bank tellers. Over 100,000 black individuals, families, churches, charities, and societies deposited a total of $57,000,000 with the Freedmen’s Savings Bank, although most accounts were under $50.



In the early 1870s, the bank directors began making speculative investments in Washington, D.C., real estate and providing substantial, unsecured loans to railroad and other business firms. Jay Cooke, president of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, for example, borrowed $500,000 on favorable terms. Other loans were handed out to friends, political cronies, and allegedly even to members of the Ku Klux Klan...

http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/CartoonOfTheDay.asp

Historically, the only times that bankers have not stolen and squandered depositors money, is when they are closely watched by a competent federal agency.

[Bluenorthwest]

1. So how nice for the bankers this time

to have the federal government simply hand them the money, as a gift.

[panzerfaust]

3. Because this time they WERE the government.

[malaise]

2. Thanks for this

I never heard about this before. The big thieves always win.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. There is a BIG change ..... there is no longer any need for the subterfuge of the past

They can now steal openly, aided and abetted by the government.

Kewl.