The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. June 20, 2012 Report: Big Banks Receiving Billions in Corporate Welfare Through Subsidized Rates ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A new analysis by Bloomberg News has concluded the nation's largest banks are receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded corporate welfare because governments are subsiding artificially low interest rates. Banks have been able to borrow at a lower cost because creditors can rely on government intervention should a bank default. A recent paper by the International Monetary Fund estimates the subsidized interest rates end up saving banks 0.8 percent of their borrowing costs. According to Bloomberg, that amounts to $76 billion in subsidies for the nation's 18 largest banks per year, including $14 billion for JP Morgan Chase — or 77 percent of the bank's income. .