The Susan G. Komen breast cancer fund reversed its Planned Parenthood action and the right wing anti-choice politician it hired has resigned. But the real lesson of this incident is broader than one decision or one person.

Our society is permeated with a culture of corporate greed, aggression, and power that reaches from the boardrooms of New York to the meeting rooms of Washington.

The Susan G. Komen foundation has raised millions to support vitally important work, but it has also reinforced some of the worst tendencies in our society. It has leveraged big-company resources so that it could dominate its "marketplace," usually by serving as a marketing arm for a client list that includes some very poorly-behaved corporate citizens. Then it has used its market dominance to bully other organizations, push its own political agenda, and try to reshape the course of U.S. cancer research in dangerous ways.

Just like its most prominent sponsor, the Susan G. Komen foundation has become too big to fail.

The Players

Karen Handel had some bitter words for her critics as she stepped down from her post as Komen's vice president for public policy. "I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it," Handel wrote.

But there was no "strategy," which Handel and others have defined as denying funding to any group that is under federal investigation. As we noted, and others reported as well, a number of other Komen grant recipients were under real federal investigation and were left untouched, while Planned Parenthood was to be cut for being the subject of a trumped-up, one-person investigation conducted by a right-wing member of Congress.

Nancy Brinker, Komen's founder and CEO, served in a number of positions under George W. Bush, while Handel was a Sarah Palin-endorsed gubernatorial candidate. Political affiliations shouldn't disqualify anyone from serving in a charitable role, of course. Like many people, I've often enjoyed working with ideological opponents on charitable issues of common interest. That kind of cause-based allegiance can help bind our society together.

But Brinker brings her ideology into her Komen work, and has done it so effectively that she's transformed the world of charitable giving ... for the worse. There isn't just the matter of her personal compensation, which the foundation reported as $531,924 as of 2010. Or the fact that she's the only employee who flies first class at the charity's expense, according to the fund's IRS financial filing. (See Komen's form 8453-EO for 2010.)

There's an argument to be made that highly effective fundraisers and executives should receive good, if not excessive, salaries and perks. We won't have that argument here. And for all we know, Ms. Brinker may donate her entire salary to charity. She did choose this career over corporate life, after all, which seems like an altruistic move.

Nor will we argue that Nancy Brinker hasn't been effective at her job. But how has she been effective?

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According to a Missouri Better Business Bureau study (PDF) published in 2009, Missouri's state laws allow interest rates of 1950 percent to be charged on a two-week loan of $100.00, while most neighboring states' laws limit those rates to around 400 percent, which is not wonderful, but not as obviously impossible as Missouri's.

A report published by National Public Action this month has even more devastating details of the effects of this type of predatory lending, and link payday lenders to big banks' profits:

• Payday lenders take at the very least $3.4 billion from our communities every year in fees alone. This figure represents some $3.1 billion in wealth stripped from desperate borrowers -money that could have gone to buy needed groceries or school supplies- to pump up the payday lenders' fat bottom lines.
• Nationwide, revenues for the major payday loan companies (Advance America, EZ Corp, First Cash Financial, Dollar Financial, Cash America, QC Holdings) have risen to their highest level - $1.48 Billion per year- more than before the financial crisis.
• Big banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and US Bank finance approximately 42% of the entire payday loan industry, providing the industry the capital for usurious and predatory loans.

[Full report - PDF]

Needless to say, the CFPB could not be investigating these loan sharks any sooner, particularly when they prey upon the working poor who are already struggling. These types of loans are typically targeted at minority communities, but also military families and other struggling groups. But while the CFPB investigation continues, a coalition of churches, bankers and nonprofits are working to create an alternative around a microlending model. In addition, petitions are being circulated for voter initiatives to limit interest rates on payday loans to more - ahem - reasonable rates.

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The buzz is that President Barack Obama is pushing hard for a deal with the big banks over the foreclosure crisis in advance of the State of the Union address on Tuesday. Most observers are afraid that the deal will be too small and that the banks will get a slap on the wrist despite playing a major role in creating the financial crisis that led to a recession.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined a growing chorus calling for a rejection of such a small deal and calling for an investigation of the banks over potential fraud and illegal activity:

We need to hold banks accountable for the fraudulent practices that brought about the worst economic crisis since the Depression. State Attorneys General have been investigating bank fraud, and these critical investigations must not be undermined by a premature and inadequate settlement. We call on the administration to reject any deal that insulates banks from full responsibility.

We commend state Attorneys Generals like New York’s Eric Schneiderman and Delaware’s Beau Biden for their leadership and courage in calling for a real investigation and relief on a scale that helps the millions of homeowners who face a new wave of foreclosures.

The economy is currently weighed down by $750 billion in negative home equity, so relief on a massive scale is needed to lift home values and stimulate the economy by increasing consumer demand. A comprehensive settlement must force banks to write down underwater mortgages. A sum significantly larger than the rumored $25 billion is needed for the economy to grow and create jobs.

Specifically, the administration must stand strong against the Big Banks and insist on:

1. A full and thorough investigation into problems tied to the residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market, and

2. A guaranteed minimum amount of money set aside for reducing the mortgage principal of “underwater” homeowners in key states impacted by the foreclosure crisis.

This is an opportunity for the administration to demonstrate leadership and show that it has the political will to do what’s right for homeowners and right for our economy.

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The Obama White House continues to push for a settlement that would let bankers avoid being punished - or even investigated - for a wave of mortgage-related crimes that includes perjury, tax evasion, and several types of fraud.[1]

Despite the President's new-found populism - rhetorically, anyway - officials in his Administration continue to push an unfair deal designed to conceal the financial Crime of the Century.

The Financial Times reported on new details of the proposed settlement, whose stated purpose is to punish banks and reduce the amount of money owed by underwater homeowners. But it's increasingly clear that the deal wouldn't help homeowners very much and wouldn't punish bankers at all.

Banks could lower those loan balances by reducing the amount owed on mortgages owned by investors and not by the bank itself. That's what Bank of America is accused of doing as part of an $8 billion settlement it reached in 2008. This deal would set the stage for a repeat performance.

This proposed deal is still unfair, unjust, and very unbalanced. And it has the Administration's fingerprints all over it.

Unfair

Banks deceived investors into buying bundled mortgages (mortgage-backed securities) that they knew were worth far less than they were paying. Now, as part of this settlement deal, they could shaft those investors again. Many of the investors are from the 99 percent, not the one percent. As the head of the Association of Mortgage Investors told the Financial Times, "It would be a pyrrhic victory to settle the mortgage crisis with the money of public institutions, pension funds and seniors."

The proposed deal would force banks to meet a certain dollar limit for reducing mortgage principal. But it's designed to let them use other people's money - mortgage investors' money - to reach that limit. They would have to reduce principals by a larger amount if they were using someone else's money.

Taking $1.00 off their own books might get them $1.00 closer to their goal, while using investors' money money only "earn" them fifty cents. Is that really supposed to encourage them to do the right thing?

Ask yourself: What if you were given a choice between spending a thousand dollars of your own money to pay a fine - or two thousand dollars of someone else's? (And remember: You're a banker, so don't let conscience influence your decision.) What would you do?

The money should come out of the banks' balance sheets, not those of mortgage investors that in many cases they've already defrauded. Even that isn't entirely fair: Many pension funds and other institutional investors hold bank stock, too, as do unwary private investors. They've also been defrauded by bank executives. But someone has to pay the price for trusting these bankers and tolerating their continued presence in the executive suite.

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Remember when we floated banks all that money so they could lend to small businesses, and instead they used it to pay bonuses and shore up their profits? Ah, good times! Now Bank of America has decided to jack up small business owners by boosting their interest rates to payday-loan-type levels in order to build their "core" business:

Bank of America Corp., under pressure to raise capital and cut risks, is severing lines of credit to some small-business owners who have used them to stay afloat.

The Charlotte, N.C., bank is demanding that these customers pay off their credit line balances all at once instead of making monthly payments. If they can't pay in full, they are being offered new repayment plans for as long as five years, but with far higher interest rates than their original credit lines had.

Business owners complain that BofA's credit squeeze is abrupt and could strain their small companies and even put them out of business. The credit cutoff is coming at a time when the California economy can't seem to catch a break, and bucks what the financial industry says is a new trend of easing standards on business loans.

One such customer, Babak Zahabizadeh, was told in a letter that the $96,000 debt carried by his Burbank messenger service must be repaid Jan. 25. A loan officer offered multiple alternatives over the phone that Zahabizadeh called unaffordable, including paying off the debt at 12% interest over two years. That's about $4,500 a month, nearly 10 times his current interest-only payment.

Zahabizadeh, known as Bobby Zahabi to his customers, said he has cut the staff of his Messengers & Distribution Inc. to 80 from 200 to nurse his business through tough times.

"I was like, 'Dude, you're calling a guy who's barely surviving!' " he said. "My final word was that I can double my payment — but not triple or quadruple it. I told them if they apply too much pressure they're going to push me into bankruptcy."

The capped credit lines stem from a corporate overhaul launched by Brian Moynihan, who became Bank of America's chief executive in 2010. He promised to address losses caused by loose lending and rapid expansion by reining in risks and shedding investments deemed non-core.

BofA spokesman Jefferson George said a "very small percentage" of small-business customers have been affected by the changes. He would not provide exact numbers except to say it wasn't in the hundreds of thousands. Some of the affected businesses had been customers of other banks that Bank of America acquired, but most were BofA customers from the start, George said.

"These changes were explained in letters to customers, and they were necessary for Bank of America to continue prudent lending to viable businesses across the U.S.," he said.

Yep, a real Christmas miracle would be bankers admitting wrongdoing and having the good grace to resign. But I'm guessing that happy surprise is not going to be under the tree this year. Oh well! David Wallis at the Prospect has this to say about the new warm-and-fuzzy Bank of America ads:

BoA’s tearjerkers coincide with less inspiring news about the company. The New York Times recently reported that Small Business Administration-backed loans by BoA plummeted 89 percent from 2006 to 2010. Meanwhile, BoA ranked on the bottom of JD Power’s annual Small Business Banking Study. The U.S. Treasury just issued Bank of America, as well as JPMorgan Chase, poor reviews for their performance in a federal program intended to modify the mortgages of homeowners facing foreclosure. And the fallout continues from the bank’s much-maligned plan, since dropped, to charge a monthly fee to debit card customers.

J.P. Morgan Chase also followed headlines about heartless behavior with the release of a heartwarming ad. Earlier this year, Chase ponied up $56 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the bank of overcharging more than 6,000 active-duty troops on mortgages and wrongly foreclosing the homes of fourteen military families. But let bygones be bygones. Chase’s latest ad salutes its mission to hire military veterans. The commercial shows clean-cut former soldiers donning new uniforms—crisp blue “Chase” dress shirts. “Chase knows when you are hiring a veteran, you’re hiring America’s best,” ooh-rahs one of the bank’s cadets.

Gene Grabowski, who specializes in crisis management at Levick Strategic Communications in Washington D.C., believes that the banks’ ads could pay dividends for the embattled companies. “People have been critical of banks since Old Man Potter shut down the Savings and Loan,” says Grabowski. “Does this really change the perception? No. But it does relieve some of the pressure from Capitol Hill and reminds consumers, ‘maybe banks aren’t all bad.”

A hearts and minds ad campaign might be a wily marketing strategy, but how about trying contrition and accountability? Imagine the commercials, which would cost little to produce. J.P. Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon and Bank of America’s CEO Brian T. Moynihan face the camera in front of a plain backdrop. First, the CEOs thank the American people for the bailout. “You were there for us even though we have not been there for you,” admits each banker. Then Dimon and Moynihan apologize for their respective bank’s misdeeds and announce their immediate resignations. Fade to black.

Now that would be a holiday miracle.

The Obama Administration announced a $335 million settlement deal with Bank of America to settle charges of discriminatory lending practices. Here is, in ascending order of importance, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Justice Department deserves praise for responding to illegal bank behavior more aggressively than it's done in the past. So does the Occupy movement, and so do the many Americans who have expressed their outrage over the lack of prosecutions and sweetheart bank deals. Without them it's unlikely we'd be seeing a deal like this at all.

But while the Justice Department has taken a first step, the proposed agreement seems designed to do only the bare minimum its framers hoped would be needed to quell public outrage. While it will be sold as bold and decisive, it's not. In fact, this deal perpetuates some of the worst failings of past settlements the government's made with big banks.

As we said, it has good features. But where it's ugly, it's very ugly indeed. Hopefully the judge who reviews it will bear that in mind.

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Federal Reserve Headquarters (Eccles Building), Washington DC

It took the journalists at Bloomberg News two years - and presumably lots of legal fees - to pry information out of the Federal Reserve that should have been made public long ago. We now know that the Fed's secret $7.7 trillion lending program wasn't just the most massive bank bailout ever seen, and it wasn't just free money for mega-bankers - though it was certainly both of those things. It was also the greatest hoax in stock market history.

No, scratch that. It was the greatest hoax in the history of money. And it was built on lies. How many? Let us count the ways.

Here's the first one: The banks paid back all the money back that they were given. No, they didn't. They paid back the principal on these loans. But by obtaining loans at rates far below market value, we now know they received the equivalent of $13 billion in cash giveaways.

Here's another lie: Fed economists support a free-market economy.

Ben Bernanke is a conservative economist who claims to support a free-market system. But we now know that the Federal Reserve lent astonishing sums to US banks in secret, and Bernanke fought with all the resources at his disposal to ensure that this information didn't become public. He didn't just want it to be held back to avoid a panic during the crisis. He wanted it kept secret forever.

I don't know what you call somebody like that, but I know what you don't call him: A capitalist. Free markets need transparency, so that investors and customers can make informed decisions and 'the wisdom of the market' can prevail. Nobody wanted the market to do its job. When it came to banks, they wanted it to be blind, deaf, and dumb, unable to make sound judgments about their financial soundness.

They still want it that way. They don't want investors to know how badly Wall Street executives failed at their jobs. They don't want the free market to do what it does best - thin the herd so it's free of incompetent managers like the executives who still run our largest banks.

You can believe in the free market, ur you can believe in today's Wall Street. But you can't do both.

Here's another lie, one that's spread by Dimon and others: Giant banks are more efficient. Size brings efficiency in other kinds of business, but these banks needed massive help. America's six largest banks accounted on any given day for an average of 63 percent of the debt on these loans. The only thing they're more efficient at is wringing free money out of government-created institutions.

And, wow. Jamie Dimon sure is a hypocrite. As Bloomberg noted:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon told shareholders in a March 26, 2010, letter that his bank used the Fed's Term Auction Facility "at the request of the Federal Reserve to help motivate others to use the system." He didn't say that the New York-based bank's total TAF borrowings were almost twice its cash holdings or that its peak borrowing of $48 billion on Feb. 26, 2009, came more than a year after the program's creation.

He also didn't mention that these favorable loans gave his bank nearly half a billion dollars in cash it otherwise wouldn't have had. Know what's convenient about that? It helps make up for the three-quarters of a billion Dimon's bank gave up to settle charges of bribery and corruption in Jefferson County, Alabama.

Chase borrowed massive sums of money, either because it was in bigger trouble than it has admitted or because it was bleeding an emergency public program out of greed. Either way, they weren't doing anybody a favor except themselves. How big a favor? Chase netted $457.9 million.

Citigroup's an even more extreme example. Once our largest bank (until continued mismanagement led to ongoing shrinkage). It only exists because Robert Rubin and other officials in the Clinton Administration,cleared the way for the largest merger in history with the enthusiastic support of the Republicans. That merger combined a bank with an insurance company, a harbinger of bad things to come in the risk area.

Citigroup's got the equivalent of a $1.8 billion gift, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan sneers at his critics, especially those who think you shouldn't foreclose on families without obtaining proof that you own their mortgage. "Oh, sure," he said in response to government demands, "we'll do our homework."

Bank of America's gift came to $1.5 billion.

Goldman Sachs shouldn't have been eligible for any Fed giveaways because it wasn't a commercial bank. But a special "waiver" allowed Goldman allowed to become commercial bank so it could be rescued from actions it took before it was a commercial bank. Before that it was an investment bank. Yet, strangely, it seems to have kept operating as an investment bank even after the transition, too, even though commercial banks aren't allowed to do that.

Understand that? Don't take it personally if you don't. You're not supposed to.

Goldman Sachs's take? Just under $1 billion.

Washington's always telling us that bankers may have done naughty things, but they weren't illegal things. That gets us to our next lie: There's no evidence that bank executives have committed crimes. Thanks to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, we may be about to discover whether that's true regarding foreclosures and mortgage filings. But when it comes to stock fraud, the evidence is already piling up.

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It's never been more obvious that the unemployed have no one looking out for them. This is really a shocking story and if you still have a Bank of America account, this might finally motivate you to move your money:

CORDOVA, S.C.-- Shawana Busby does not seem like the sort of customer who would be at the center of a major bank's business plan. Out of work for much of the last three years, she depends upon a $264-a-week unemployment check from the state of South Carolina. But the state has contracted with Bank of America to administer its unemployment benefits, and Busby has frequently found herself incurring bank fees to get her money.

To withdraw her benefits, Busby, 33, uses a Bank of America prepaid debit card on which the state deposits her funds. She could visit a Bank of America ATM free of charge. But this small community in the state's rural center, her hometown, does not have a Bank of America branch. Neither do the surrounding towns where she drops off her kids at school and attends church.

She could drive north to Columbia, the state capital, and use a Bank of America ATM there. But that entails a 50-mile drive, cutting into her gas budget. So Busby visits the ATMs in her area and begrudgingly accepts the fees, which reach as high as five dollars per transaction. She estimates that she has paid at least $350 in fees to tap her unemployment benefits.

"It really boggles my mind," she said. "This bank is taking little bits of money out of thousands of pockets, including mine."

Bank of America recently aborted plans to charge ordinary banking customers $5 a month to use their debit cards in the face of national outrage. But the bank has quietly continued to mine another source of fees: jobless people who depend upon the bank's prepaid debit cards to tap their benefits. Bank of America and other financial firms -- including U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase -- have secured contracts to provide access to public benefits in 41 states. These contracts typically allow banks to collect unlimited fees from merchants and consumers.

In short, the same banks whose speculation delivered a financial crisis that has destroyed millions of jobs have figured out how to turn widespread unemployment into a profit center: The larger the number of people who are out of work and dependent upon the state for sustenance, the greater the potential gains through administering their benefits.

I'm sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with Occupy Wall Street, nor does it have anything to do with Move Your Bank Day (Nov. 2). No, the thoughtful people who run these fine banking organizations have simply decided more monthly fees would be counterproductive at this time:

A month after Bank of America got pummeled by consumers and politicians for introducing plans for new debit-card fees, most other big U.S. banks are steering clear of imposing similar charges.

Following eight months of consumer testing, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has decided that it won't charge customers who use their debit cards to make purchases, according to a person familiar with the bank's plans. The New York bank's Chase retail unit is one of the largest U.S. consumer banks, with 26.5 million checking accounts and 5,300 branches.

J.P. Morgan joins U.S. Bancorp, Citigroup Inc., PNC Financial Services Group Inc., KeyCorp and other large banks that have said in recent days that they won't impose monthly fees on debit cards. None of those banks said they made their decisions because of the outcry over Bank of America's fees.

"We looked at all options and quickly decided it didn't fit with our overall strategy," said David Bowen, who runs the consumer-product business at Cleveland-based Key, which ranks among the 20 largest banks in the country.

Banks are loading fees onto customer accounts in an attempt to recover billions of dollars in revenue that will be lost from new restrictions on debit cards, credit cards and overdrafts. Most big banks have already eliminated free checking for customers who don't meet certain criteria on their accounts, such as minimum balances or a certain number of direct deposit transactions.