'Cha-ching!' Christmas Time on Wall Street

by Mike Whitney | CounterPunch | Click HERE to read article

Remember how Quantitative Easing was going to “get the banks lending again”?

Well, it hasn’t worked that way. In fact, after 4 years of zero rates and $3 trillion in monetary pump-priming, “banks are lending less to small businesses and consumers than before the financial crisis”. (International Business Times)

But how can that be, you ask, after all, didn’t the banks just report record profits in the Third Quarter?

Yep, they sure did. $40 billion-worth. But the bulk of that dough was raked off their gaming operations, you know, all the dodgy activities that Dodd-Frank regulations were going to stop, but never did. As far as lending to households and small businesses, that’s been a non-starter from the get-go.