• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    This “Bark” person in Twitter has literally no fucking clue whatsoever, I mean ZERO clue, the level of knowledge of a particularly dumb stone which somehow managed to end up in the shoe of a statue thus being the most useless meaningless shoe stone ever.

    In the context of money laundering, “$5 billion in suspicious transactions” means that $5 billion in customer money moved into, out of or through BofA accounts and said customers or the transactions are suspicious (legally that would be things like “terrorism funding”, “proceedings of crime”, “proceedings of corruption”, “money belonging to sanctioned entities” and so on).

    It does NOT mean BofA made $5 billion

    Of all the fucked up ways Bank Of America (like all big banks) scams, pillages, swindles and even forcefully extracts (with the help of their bought and paid for political minions) money out of society, this ain’t it.

    • cuerdo@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Laundering 5B is worth more than 5B

      You are brushing of it being crime money, when crime money is what makes them billions

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Laundering 5B is worth more than 5B

        That’s literally saying that a money launderer makes more money that the total amount of money that passed through their hands in the money laundering.

        I don’t know who taught you Mathematics, but if you paid for it, you’re entitled to a refund.

        As for what makes them billions, most of it is totally legal stuff because they bought the fucking laws.

        I worked in the Finance Industry for a decade or so and the fucking legislators have been passing laws to benefit these fuckers for decades now (“help the rent-seeking fat-cats” is pretty much the de facto core of fucking Neoliberalism) and the sons of a bitch “regulators” are so bought and paid for it’s not even funny.

        It’s the single biggest legal scam in existence, and if it’s not, then it’s the second biggest legal scam just after the Oil Industry.

        Sure, these fuckers won’t refrain themselves from a little criminality if there’s money to be made and their risk analysis spreadsheets tell them that probability-of-getting-caught * chance-of-enforcement-action * average-fine < expected-profitability * (1 - safety-margin) (and no, I’m not exaggerating - whilst my formula is representative rather than exact, they definitely do risk analysis for “opportunities” involving law-breaking same as they do for all other), but it’s not as if they need to break the law to make billions, it’s more a “why leave money on the table?” philosophy - as the (pure sociopath) saying in the industry goes “If I can profit from it but don’t do it, somebody else will do it instead, so better I do it and get the gains” - plus in the current environment the chance-of-enforcement-action is minuscule and the fines are ridiculously small on account of the industry owning politicians and regulators.

        Maybe you were still in kindergarten when that shit went on, but I saw the 2008 Crash and aftermath on the front-seat row and these fuckers got unconditionally saved by politicians from the consequences of their own GIANT fuck-up, and said politicians turned around and made every-fucking-body whose income comes from their work pay for it - sometimes even openly so with Austerity for the poor - whilst the value of the Assets of the Rich and Upper Middle Class was propped up.

  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Wells Fargo committed mass fraud and identity theft and got a slap on the wrist.

    Wells Fargo is a crime syndicate masquerading as a bank. They should have been penalized out of existence. But there is a double standard of “justice” when it comes to corporations vs individuals. When you’re a corporation, you can get away with just about anything as long as you dont piss away all the shareholders money.

    In a society driven almost entirely by greed, the love of money trumps justice and the people in power will gladly look the other way if it means they can avoid even a small financial hit. The penalties become nothing more than a formality. A cost of doing business. And the crime spree continues unabated.

      • antianarchist@sopuli.xyz
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        2 days ago

        For whom? The criminal or the bank?

        A very interesting number and I was not aware that it is this expensive. Another question that arises with this case is, if the bank had any involvement, as they only “failed to declare”, and not failed to detect. Maybe human/system error.

        Like I am not trying to argue for the bank, fuck them. Just trying to get an objective view on the situation.

  • RFKJrsBrainworm@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Why isn’t the fine on top of taking the profit made from fraud???

    Welp, I’ve got none idea what I am talking about… please ignore my statement.

    In other situations when a company profits off fraud they should pay the profit back on top of the fraud fines. Like when a big pharma reps sell a drug for pain that hasn’t been approved for pain, not because it’s better but because it’s 30x as expensive as ibuprofen

    • cuerdo@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      This is like fining Walter White for buying the Car Wash with illegal money

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    It will never make sense to me how low monetary fines are for crimes in general, especially when they are specifically lower than the money gained for that crime.

    For another example, the crime of claiming to be a lawyer in California of which Trumps Press Secretary is being accused comes with a maximum of 1 year in prison OR $1000 dollar fine. $1000 vs 1 year of imprisonment… those are not even comparable for anybody. Even if you are just talking about lack of earning potential for a whole year at minimum wage, we are talking $15,000 losses. And for someone who is pretending to be a lawyer, they were likely making far more than minimum wage. And that is on top of the experience itself of the prison time AND the stigma of having been to prison after your release. Or… you pay $1000. I’m not wealthy, but that fine would be more annoying than punishing to me, and I’m not making lawyer-like money. How are those two things the options for the same crime?

  • ZMoney@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I hate to be the person that says “this is how capitalism works” but like, employee does $300 worth of work, boss pays $100 in wages, keeps the rest, repeat, there it’s the same glitch just dressed up differently.

  • EmptyAsparagus@piefed.social
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    3 days ago

    yeah yeah, its a meme, but pretending that transactions, that the bank did, is money, that the bank has is just untruthful.

    • cuerdo@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It is not a direct equivalent, but moving 5B illegaly sounds a much bigger crime than just a 20% fee

  • Jankatarch@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    They would still make same profit by sitting around btw it’s just slightly faster this way at cost of ruining lives.

    • Triumph@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      The rules work perfectly when you’re rich and you wrote the rules to prefer you.