Finally Good News from Wall Street

The FDIC reported today that for the first quarter of 2009, the banks made a profit of 7.6 Billion dollars. Not too shabby, eh? And that?s profit not income which gets the cost of salaries, rents, and the little chains for the pens taken out of it but profit which shareholders get to take home and roll around naked in. 7.6 Billion dollars of the stuff. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn?t it? Madonna doesn?t have 7.6 Billion dollars and she used to live in a castle! But when you put it into context, all of the sudden it doesn?t seem like all that much money.

For one thing, in 2008 the banks made 19.3 Billion dollars. So if you have a bad attitude about these things you could look at the meager 7.6 Billion dollar profits as a loss of 11.7 dollars. Can you imagine losing 11.7 Billion dollars? I lost two dollars this week because I left some spare change on my desk at work over the long weekend and I?ve been kicking myself ever since. If I had to multiply that loss by five billion or so, I don?t know what I?d do. But even that is candy coating things.

The American Tax Payer was kind enough to loan/give the banks 700 Billion dollars between that 19.3 Billion respectable first quarter of 20008 and the measly 7.6 Billion dollars of 2009?s first quarter. So if you add that in, the banks really made no profit at all and had a net loss of 692.4 Billion dollars. Fortunately, we?re all agreeing to forget about that 700 Billion dollars for now. Because if the FDIC came out and said, ?Good news! The banks have only lost 692.4 Billion Dollars this quarter.? It might hurt consumer confidence.

Good thing nobody?s putting things into perspective on the business pages.