It was announced this week that a group of US banks, including the too-big-to-fail JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, have agreed to an $8,500,000,000.00 settlement to address claims against fraudulent and oppressive mortgage practices, (you remember, the ones that brought our country to its economic knees).  I would first point out that this seemingly huge sum of money will first and foremost enrich a gaggle of attorneys, (on both sides), and whatever is left will be doled out to the class action participants in a better-something-than-nothing trickle.  The criminals, (whose offer comes with a “no admission of wrong doing” clause in its obvious, although tacit guilty plea), will not be charged with a crime, will spend no time incarcerated and will in fact remain free and filthy rich to continue to provide community disservice.  Meanwhile, the millions of people harmed by the practices for which this settlement is supposed to be atonement, whose homes and jobs have been lost and whose lives have been nearly destroyed as a direct result of the economical meltdown…nada!

Here’s the thing.  BP is running commercials to remind us all just how responsible they have been in providing a more than $20,000,000,000.00 pay-out in reparations for the Gulf disaster.  The only pain and suffering this has caused BP, (other than the oh so painful termination of Tony Hayward, who had to skulk away with his hundreds of millions in severance), is, well, I can’t think of any.  What I do think, however, is that companies like BP and financial institutions like those above, like the insurance industry, in general, expect bad things to happen and have actuarial studies in place to minimize their exposure.  Environmental issues aside, if staggering numbers, with all those zeroes, don’t cause a hiccup in a company’s day-to-day operation, how much is that company overcharging its customers for their goods and services?  A shameful amount…that’s how much!  And before any of you ultra-conservatives, (like any ultra-conservative would have read past my first sentence), put a hit out on me for bad-mouthing free enterprise, I have no problem with legitimate providers of products and services charging whatever the market will bear, hopefully based on the quality thereof.  With banking and oil and insurance, industries that determine product pricing and fees in a self-regulating universe all their own, hourly fluctuations of interest rates and premiums and prices per gallon, (although they like to state it in barrels which is way more confusing), assure profits and provide immunity from prosecution.  And as long as these foxes are guarding, (and funding), our Congressional hen house, we can expect more showy pay-offs to delight the snickering talking heads that bring us the good news…and nothing more.