All of these huge fines that have exceeded $250 BILLION have the big capital very worried and starting to scramble with respect how to protect their assets. The whole craziness of the banking fines is that there is no limit. It is not like if you go through a red light the fine is $250. Here we have governments handing out fines with whatever they think they can get away with.
Banks in Switzerland have become really unsalable. Other banks are strip mining buying assets but not the entities because nobody can guess what a fine might be. If you bought a bank for $10 million and the USA claims there use to be a client who didn’t pay taxes, they then fine the bank $1 billion. Nobody can even buy a bank anymore for there is no possible way to even gauge the liability.
The impact this is having is interesting. We are starting to see more and more capital moving into equities fearing even these fines may be destabilizing the banking system. Then we have the USA arrogance of fining European banks simply because they did a deal in dollars. This is insane and is unsupported by international law. Only if a transaction takes place within the territory of the United States is there any jurisdiction. But the process of appealing will take years and a gamble since the courts are not honest in the USA. The solution, book transactions in some other currency. This is settling the stage for dramatic currency reform in the years ahead.
