Michael Pettis Bank of America fined $335m for minority discrimination 21 December 2011Last updated at 23:04 The case is the latest for Bank of America relating to the sub-prime mortgage crash Bank of America's Countrywide Financial business has agreed to pay a record fine of $335m (£214m, 257m euros) to settle discrimination charges. The US justice department said around 200,000 qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers were charged with higher rates "solely because of their race or national origin". Dan Frahm, a Bank of America spokesman, said in a statement that the bank did not practise lending based on race. BoA bought Countrywide in 2008. The settlement covers conduct between 2004 and 2008, before the BoA takeover. 'Discrimination with a smile' Countrywide specialised in sub-prime mortgages, which were often granted without proper checks on criteria including the creditworthiness of borrowers. Those sub-prime mortgage holders ended up paying more in fees and rates. Subprime legacy BoA rejected those allegations.
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Bill Mitchell Blog How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs | World news | The Observer On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel. During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo. The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller's cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme.
iTulip.com - The Contrary Market View - For Independent Financial Advisor, Currency Online Trading, Commodity Online Trading, FOREX EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty Crestmont Research Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, research reveals | Business | The Observer The world's super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy. James Henry, a former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has conducted groundbreaking new research for the Tax Justice Network campaign group – sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts to construct an alarming picture that shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system. Comedian Jimmy Carr became the public face of tax-dodging in the UK earlier this year when it emerged that he had made use of a Cayman Islands-based trust to slash his income tax bill. "These estimates reveal a staggering failure," says John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network.