Using IMF research earlier this year Bloomberg estimated the subsidy paid to US banks arising from the implicit taxpayer guarantee of banks (otherwise known as too big to fail) is a huge $83 billion a year (as of 2010).

In an editorial from February 2013 Bloomberg wrote:

"The top five banks -- JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. -- account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits (see table for data on individual banks). In other words, the banks occupying the commanding heights of the U.S. financial industry -- with almost $9 trillion in assets, more than half the size of the U.S. economy -- would just about break even in the absence of corporate welfare. In large part, the profits they report are essentially transfers from taxpayers to their shareholders."

Imagine if these banking brains were doing something more productive?