‘The big banks have been caught red-handed’

[truebluefan]

For those looking for greater accountability from Wall Street, this week offered some good news and some bad news. The good news is, five major financial institutions will pay $5.6 billion in fines and plead guilty to multiple crimes. The bad news is, given the scope of their manipulative schemes, the penalty seems far less severe than it should be.

The New York Timesreported yesterday on the latest entry “to Wall Street’s growing rap sheet.”

The Justice Department forced four of the banks – Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland – to plead guilty to antitrust violations in the foreign exchange market as part of a scheme that padded the banks’ profits and enriched the traders who carried out the plot. The traders were supposed to be competitors, but much like companies that rigged the price of vitamins and automotive parts, they colluded to manipulate the largest and yet least regulated market in the financial world, where some $5 trillion changes hands every day, prosecutors said.

Underscoring the collusive nature of their contact, which often occurred in online chat rooms, one group of traders called themselves “the cartel,” an invitation-only club where stakes were so high that a newcomer was warned, “Mess this up and sleep with one eye open.”

Read more http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-big-banks-have-been-caught-red-handed