Sense on Cents

Unlike the token fines — akin to mere parking violations — that the American public has seen imposed on Wall Street to date, the DOJ now seems to want to regain some degree of credibility by writing up the major Wall Street banks for some speeding tickets.

The widely publicized but yet consummated $13 billion fine expected to be paid by JP Morgan is proposed as a template for similar fines likely of a smaller magnitude to be paid by other banks.

An outlier in this imposition of fines as being little more than a cost of doing business occurred yesterday when a jury returned a guilty verdict in a civil case brought against Countrywide (now a division of Bank of America) for fraud in the sale of mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This case is an exception rather than the rule but recall that it is a civil disposition and not a criminal proceeding.

Returning now to our regularly scheduled broadcast, we awake this morning and see that JPM is back in the news with the Feds talking about imposing a penalty on Jamie’s bank for its involvement with the Madoff scam. (more…)