Morgan Stanley to Pay $3.2 Billion for Costing Americans TrillionsBy Claire Bernish But, as the world is keenly cognizant and in sharp contrast to Icelands rational punishment of the criminal element responsible for its financial woes big banks and the economic henchmen who ran them received at least $3.3 trillion in rewards, er, bailout cash, to ostensibly stay afloat. As further evidence of the banks virtual immunity to punishment for their role in the crisis, the New York Attorney Generals office announcedThursday that Morgan Stanleyreached a settlement arrangement with state and federal authorities for a paltry $3.2 billion. When considering Morgan Stanleys acknowledged list of offenses agreed to in the deal, its questionable whether officials dont fully comprehend the enormity of the crisis, or simply dont find its effects on the populace sufficiently grave to tally a more punitive sum which, of course, could be said of settlements with all big banks complicit in the financial meltdown. Per the settlement, Morgan Stanley conceded it misrepresented risks and knew the mortgage-backed securities it was selling contained material defects including loans deemed underwater, where the loan amount had been arbitrarily inflated beyond the value of the property. According to the statement from New York Attorney General Schneiderman: In a May 31, 2006 email, the head of Morgan Stanleys team tasked with doing due diligence on the value of the properties underlying mortgage loans asked a colleague, please do not mention the slightly higher risk tolerance in these communications. We are running under the radar and do not want to document these types of things. In another email on November 26, 2006, a member of the Morgan Stanley due diligence team forwarded a list of questionable loans, seeking review and approval to purchase them and adding I assume you will want to do your magic on this one? In another similar instance from July 2006, the head of Morgan Stanleys valuation due diligence cleared dozens of risky loans for purchase after less than one minute of review per loan file. Under the guidance of the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group (RMBS), a joint effort between the Department of Justice and various other federal and state authorities formed in 2012 to investigate those responsible for the crisis, Morgan Stanley is the latest of several banks that have reached settlements. Citigroup reached a $7 billion agreement, JPMorgan settled for $13 billion, and Bank of Americas settlement, called historic, totaled $16.6 billion, according to the Washington Post. Of course, comparing the these big bank penalties, coupled with their continued enormous profits, to the devastating effects of a $3.3 trillion loss by ordinary families makes the settlements appear to be little more than breadcrumbs. New Yorks plan for the settlement funds tellingly shows how little, if any, those who lost the most will actually benefit. As the statement explained, Morgan Stanley is required to provide creditable consumer relief totaling $400 million directly to families across the state. But what constitutes direct relief might surprise you: Creditable dollars will go toward the creation and preservation of affordable rental housing, land banks, code enforcement, communities purchasing distressed properties, and principal reductions for homeowners. While such programs to aid ailing neighborhoods are fundamentally necessary, the meager $400 million allotment seems to be a bit of an insult and certainly doesnt directly impact every family who suffered losses in the crisis.Seven years after the 2008 meltdown, Abramson still had to assert similar sentiment held by much of the country: The financial industry has to be held accountable for the impact of the crisis. With big banks able to negotiate these scant settlement arrangements, its likely such assertions will do little more than echo and bounce from building to building down Wall Street. This article (Morgan Stanley to Pay $3.2 Billion for Costing Americans Trillions) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, emailedits@theantimedia.org. Claire Bernish joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in May of 2015. Her topics of interest include thwarting war propaganda through education, the refugee crisis related issues, 1st Amendment concerns, ending police brutality, and general government corporate accountability. Born in North Carolina, she now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. And still not one banker has gone to jail, adding insult to injury. of course in word only the potus wouldnt want to offend any of those gold collar scum. And New Yorkers favor the architect of real estate derivative fraud .. Ms. Hillary. Now isnt that ironic? One bank to rule them all the unfed b.s. bank of the U.S. and the others get the funny internet numbers from the Zentral banks the world over. The all seeing eye crowd of the scum type are the very folks that perpetuate continuous wars and vaccines and chemtrails etc (false flags as well). Get rid of these banking scum families and there will be a thousand years of peace. 