Wall Street CEOs at today’s Banking hearing claimed that the sky was falling again with incomplete and misleading testimony.

via bettermarkets:

Dennis M. Kelleher, Co-founder, President, and CEO of Better Markets issued the following statement in response to the testimony of Wall Street’s CEOs today before the Senate Banking Committee.

“Wall Street’s CEOs testified before the Senate Banking Committee today as if they were the chief employment and economic growth officers for the United States and that all they care about are Main Street jobs, economic growth, small business, minorities, and low-income people. They never mention that (1) they made $1 trillion in profits over the last ten years, (2) the four largest banks reported about $30 billion in profits in the third quarter of this year which was 45% of the total profits of the entire banking industry, (3) they paid themselves hundreds of billions of dollars in bonuses, (4) the four largest banks paid out $629 billion of their net income to shareholders in buybacks and dividends since 2013, which was 80% of their net income over that period, (5) more capital is good for everyone except Wall Street CEOs, and (6) the Wall Street threat to Main Street is not over-capitalized banks, but undercapitalized banks.

“What the CEOs really care about is maximizing their profits, revenues, and bonuses, which is their right if not their duty in our capitalist system. As a result, everything else is subordinate to or in service of those priorities, but they can’t say that, so they talk Main Street jobs, the economy, small business, minorities, and low-income people.  That’s why they claim more capital will hurt Main Street, even though it really protects Main Street families from Wall Street most high risk, dangerous activities, claim to worry about mortgage lending even though the bank share of mortgage lending has steadily declined for decades, and claim concerns about small business lending even though the largest banks make the smallest amount of small business loans relative to their asset size. It is also noteworthy that the banks’ default assumption is that any increased cost to them must be entirely passed on to borrowers and bank customers, but that isn’t true. That is the choice the banks make.  They could just as easily reduce their huge buybacks, dividends, and bonuses just a little, which would avoid cost increases to customers.