Obama protects banks

Matt Taibbi's latest column expresses his contempt for the Obama administration, which is crafting a deal that creates a single fine for the banks to pay for mortgage-backed securities fraud, and protects them from all future legal action.  The Attorney General of NY, Eric Schneiderman, is blocking the deal.  Excerpt:

In a remarkable quote given to the Times, Kathryn Wylde, the Fed board member who ostensibly represents the public, said the following about Schneiderman:


It is of concern to the industry that instead of trying to facilitate resolving these issues, you seem to be throwing a wrench into it. Wall Street is our Main Street — love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible.

This, again, is coming not from a Bank of America attorney, but from the person on the Fed board who is supposedly representing the public!

This quote leads one to wonder just what Wylde would consider “indefensible,” given that stealing is pretty much the worst thing that a bank can do — and these banks just finished the longest and most orgiastic campaign of stealing in the history of money. Is Wylde waiting for Goldman and Citi to blow up a skyscraper? Dump dioxin into an orphanage? It’s really an incredible quote.

I find the whole thing incredibly discouraging.  Taibbi is as lucid and informative as always, but, like so much of what's been going on, from the bank bailout to the fact that Guantanamo is still open, it just seems inexorable.