The nation's banks lost a staggering $32.1 billion in the final three months of 2008, according to the FDIC. [AP]
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With all the TARPs and Bail Outs and Stimiluses this doesn't even seem like a staggering amount. Call me when you've got something in the trillions please.
Does anyone have any rough estimates of bank sector profits for the past ten years (or more if losses overwhelm these)?
It'd be interesting to compare/contrast the two.
I wonder if losses exceed all gains made from when the Glass-Steagall law was removed (the '40s-era law that split investment and commercial banks)... Ironic, if so.
Considering we have somewhere around 1 Trillion floating around waiting to be injected, this number doesn't really do much for me.
What exactly do they mean by "lost'. They misplaced this money? They counted on income that they didn't receive? The only way I could count this as "lost" is if the banks actually had this money and now they don't. And if I know anything about banks (which I don't) I am sure they didn't actually have this money to begin with.
The New York State comptroller has estimated Wall Street cash bonuses totaled $18.4 billion in 2008.
Merrill, which in the past waited for the new year to award bonuses, doled out $3.62 billion in late December -- just before Bank of America Corp bought it on January 1 and as it racked up a $15.84 billion quarterly loss.