Banks Still Doing Bad Things

In case you missed it: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, our country’s top energy regulator, accused JPMorgan Chase of manipulating power markets in California and the Midwest, gaming the market to get consumers to pay more for electricity. JPMorgan is expected to pay a fine of at least $400 million.

“JPMorgan picked the pockets of California households and businesses, and their manipulation increased the electric bills that people pay,” said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group.

Bad news tends to rise to the surface when banks get involved with the commodities market. Less than two weeks ago, The New York Times published an investigation into how financial institutions like Goldman Sachs manipulate the markets to raise the prices of consumer goods and make huge profits. The investigation focused on warehouses in Michigan that Goldman Sachs owned to increase the price of aluminum — which means we all pay a little bit more when we crack open a can of soda or beer.

It’s easy to shrug these kinds of things off while things like Anthony Weiner’s mayoral run/sex scandal debacle is grabbing headlines, but we should be pounding the table more to hold our financial institutions accountable and less so when sex scandals hit the front page of the tabloids. Eliot Spitzer saw zero jail time for his prostitution scandal, but so did the bankers from HSBC after it came to light last year that they laundered billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. Instead, they paid a fine and then went home to count the money they made. And let’s not forget about the LIBOR scandal, which is still resulting in lawsuits. I’ll be pounding the table each time this happens.

Photo: Mike Fisher

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