The Banker's Heart

David Cay Johnson on banks booking tax losses in nations with high corporate taxes, and profits in tax havens (via Mark Thoma):

People saved from bleeding out usually are filled with gratitude. The world is full of hospital wings and operating rooms paid for by people with resources who gave back to the institutions that saved them in a moment of crisis.
Not so banks, which are as vital to money circulating through the economy as hearts are to circulating blood in humans. This newest information on how banks game the system indicates it is not without reason that the giant black rock in front of Bank of America's old San Francisco headquarters is known as the banker's heart.
From the point of view of banks and other companies that bled buckets of red ink in 2007 through 2009, manipulating the rules to shift losses back home makes perfect sense so long as all you care about is financial accounting.
But banks, especially mismanaged banks with bad assets that cannot maintain a flow of payments to sustain themselves, also are part of a society, a global society.

If there is justice in the world, Bank of America's heart will quit pumping at some point in the not-too-distant future.  I wouldn't count on it.  Looks like Warren Buffett is pretty confident that they are still too big to fail.