The Credit Market Is Manipulated
Giant American banks said they had to be bailed out or else the American economy would crash.
It wasn’t just the $700 billion “Tarp” bailout in 2008. In reality, a large portion of the big banks’ profitscome from taxpayer bailouts and subsidies (see this, this and
At the same time, the big banks have sat on the money the government threw at them – with the encouragement of the Fed – instead of loaning it out to Main Street to kickstart the economy.
As we noted in 2012, small banks are much more interested in making loans to the little guy than the TBTFs:
USA Today points out:
Banks that received federal assistance during the financial crisisreduced lending more aggressively and gave bigger pay raises to employees than institutions that didn’t get aid, a USA TODAY/American University review found.