[Steve]

Look at how much subsidy lowers big banks’ borrowing costs. Two researchers, Kenichi Ueda of the International Monetary Fund and Beatrice Weder di Mauro of the University of Mainz, put the number at about 0.8 percentage points.

The discount applies to all their liabilities, including bonds and customer deposits. Small as it might sound, 0.8 percentage point makes a big difference. Multiplied by the total liabilities of the 10 largest U.S. banks by assets, it amounts to a taxpayer subsidy of $ 83 billion a year. 

To put the figure in perspective, it’s tantamount to the government giving the banks about 3 cents of every tax dollar collected. 

The top five banks - JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. account for $ 64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits. 

In other words, the banks occupying the commanding heights of the U.S. financial industry with almost $ 9 trillion in assets, more than half the size of the U.S. economy, would just about break even in the absence of corporate welfare. 

In large part, the profits they report are essentially transfers from taxpayers to their shareholders.

[ContemplationInTranquility]

Very true Steve. What the banks are doing is legalised theft. I don't trust banks at all now since I learnt how the money system actually works. And the bail-in legislation is really scary, the fact that money can just be taken from your account and you have no recourse.

[The Apprentice]

The best bank of man is real life skills, they go everywhere we do, we have never kept our money in the bank so they cannot steal it, if we did have any real money we would not leave it there and would instead buy things of real worth like investing it in others by sharing the knowledge with them and how to leave this sorryful system.

As Richie said today about folks getting into gear and doing things for yourself, this is the best advice I have heard all week.