The Incredible Wealth Of Wall Street Banks

If you are one of those that just doesn't believe the Wall Street bankers and the corporations (all controlled by the richest 1% of Americans) are hoarding too much of the nation's wealth, then this is a statistic that might interest you. According to Senator Bernie Sanders, just six of the largest banks in America have assets that equal 60% of this nation's total yearly Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in America in a year.

That sounds like a huge amount of money for just six banks, and the folks at Politifact decided to check it out and see if it was true. Well, it is true. In fact, the percentage quoted by Senator Sanders is actually a little bit low. The six largest banks actually have assets equaling more than 60% of the nation's GDP. Her are the assets of the six largest banks:

1. Bank of America Corp., $2.264 trillion
2. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., $2.246 trillion
3. Citigroup Inc., $1.957 trillion
4. Wells Fargo & Co., $1.260 trillion
5. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., $937 billion
6. Morgan Stanley, $831 billion

That totals up to $9.495 trillion. The GDP of the United States in 2010 was $14.527 trillion. A little simple math shows us that comes out to 65.36%. Can we stop feeling sorry for these poor banks now, and demand they pay their fair share of taxes and start loaning out money again to get some job creation started?