WSWS via Truthseeker: US bank losses wipe out years of paper profits

A milestone was reached Thursday by the US banking system: With the announcement by Citigroup and Merrill Lynch of billions of dollars in additional losses in their third quarter reports, all of the profits accumulated by the nine biggest banks during the three-and-a-half-year housing boom had vanished.
. . . these very same bankers are declaring that they have no intention any time soon of using the billions in taxpayer money handed them by the government to resume lending and unfreeze the credit markets—the ostensible purpose of the bailout measures whose estimated cost to the American people has risen to $2.25 trillion.