To what extent do the banks own Congress? Paul Blumenthal reports at Huffpo:

When Washington puts policy on the auction block, bankers are consistently the highest bidders. The industry's most striking victory has been the watering down of post-financial crisis reforms, to the point that banks are now bigger than ever and the bonuses keep flowing. But Wall Street's campaign spending and lobbying power is so intimidating that banks have repeatedly stuck the public with the tab for their losses and no one in Washington stops them. Why hasn't the government done something about outrageous ATM fees? Or credit card interest rates up to 30 percent? Bankers' clout is such that common-sense pro-consumer legislation is presumptively dead on arrival at Capitol Hill if it threatens banks' revenue streams.