On October 23, 2013 Rep. Marcy Kaptur asked for permission to address the United States House of Representatives for a few minutes regarding JP Morgan Chase $13 billion dollar settlement with the government and the issue of fraudulent mortgage securities.
” The greatest power a banker has is to create money. Banks can also abuse that awesome power. And it seems like the bigger the banks are the more they abuse that power. Let me relate a vivid example:
It was over 5 years ago that America was hit with the great Wall Street-induced recession. Five years later, those banks are still paying our people–their customers–almost nothing if customers have deposits or certificates of deposit with those institutions. That is harming seniors across this country. That is harming people who are trying to make a go of it. It is harming investors. Meanwhile, banks continue to post huge profits, especially the very biggest ones that are market controllers–for example, JPMorgan Chase, just in the last year, took $21 billion in profit; Wells Fargo, $19 billion; Goldman Sachs, $7.5 billion in profits; Citigroup, $7.5 billion; Bank of America, $4 billion–while Americans continue to struggle to make ends meet and recuperate from that Great Recession.”
“Now, it has been reported this week that JPMorgan Chase will agree to a $13 billion settlement of the civil suit filed by the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Housing Finance Agency in order to resolve several investigations into their fraudulent mortgage securities business. One question I have with that $13 billion: Are they actually going to pay it, or is JPMorgan Chase going to use it as a deduction on their taxes as a business expense or some other tax dodge that their accountants and lawyers figure out?”, she said.
“From September 7, 2005, through September 19, 2007, JPMorgan and its affiliates knowingly misrepresented the value and quality of their mortgage bonds that it sold to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The result of their actions are reverberating still throughout our economy, as foreclosure rates in places like Ohio continue to go up. They are still above the national average. In August, foreclosure starts in Ohio were up 44 percent from the previous month, for a total that month of 9,542 foreclosure filings. Tens of thousands of people are being affected from coast to coast. Minority neighborhoods were especially harmed by the financial crisis. A report by the Urban Institute estimates the loss of home equity in African American households as a result of the foreclosure crisis is at $194 billion. All the wealth that was accumulated since World War II vaporized. They were hit very hard”, said Kaptur.
“Hispanic communities lost $177 billion in home equity during the same time period. Awesome. Although a settlement has been reached in this particular case, this should not be the end of the investigation into Wall Street banks because JPMorgan and their brethren have proven to be repeat offenders. Criminal charges should be pursued, not just civil”, said Rep. Kaptur (source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov).