Wall Street bankers are strutting around like little banty roosters these days, crowing about the phenomenal profits their banks are raking in.

Citigroup has just announced that its profits for just the first three months of this year totaled an incredible $4.4 billion, Goldman Sachs' haul was $3.5 billion, JPMorgan Chase grabbed $3.3 billion and Bank of America took $3.2 billion. Top bankers are cock-a-doodle-doing over these numbers, claiming that such results prove what geniuses they are, how essential they are to America's financial health and, of course, how deserving they are of their multimillion-dollar bonuses.

Before they choke on their own hubris, however, let's note that a huge chunk of these profits are taken directly from a massive, little-known subsidy slipped to them by Ben Bernanke and other regulatory sweethearts in our country's Federal Reserve system. The Fed has deliberately held short-term interest rates to historic lows - less than one half of a percent. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is paying almost 4 percent interest on longer-term loans that banks make to the government.

This might sound complicated, but it's really a very simple transfer of public wealth to the giant banks. The Fed loans, let's say, a billion dollars to a bank at a half-percent interest. The bank then turns right around and loans that billion dollars to the Treasury Department, collecting 4 percent interest. In short, boys and girls, the banks take our money and loan it back to us for a sweet 3.5 percent profit. Sheer genius!

One wonders: Do bankers wear ski masks when they make these transactions?

Wall Street Profits, Subsidies and Lobbyists