>but an absolute crapload of money off the business as a whole.
Of the 11 sectors making up the S&P 500, over the last 15 years, finance is one of the least profitable. Banks are not very profitable compared to other sectors of the economy. [1]
The reason is there are ~5000 banks in the US, and a huge number you can choose from. If a few banks were simply charging tons more than it actually costs to run a bank, another of the 5000 would lower costs and attract more customers from the costly banks. The largest bank by deposits, JP Morgan Chase, holds < 8% of deposits held by banks. There is no monopoly, or duopoly, or anything approaching market dominance. [2]
If you're sure they making "an absolute crapload" you should invest in them. But since in reality they are not very good investments, you should rethink your beliefs. Your beliefs simply are not true, as demonstrated by market evidence.
>Keep in mind that banks receive enormous support from the government and society.
Keep in mind that society and government receives enormous support from banking. That's why they have trillions in assets - because they provide value to those using banks. When people, or govt, chooses to use a bank, both sides gain (consumer and producer surplus in economics). So the amount of business some entity obtains is reasonably proportional to the amount of utility they provide to customers. This is simple econ.
>There’s the FDIC
Paid for by banks....
>Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac
Paid for by, you guessed it, banks.... Where do you think the loans the FMs holds originate?
>the Fed (and its discount window, FedWire, etc)
Designed to help banking remain stable from bank runs, from, guess what, panics of people. It's such a good system for stability compared to previous times that the structure has been adopted by all 200+ countries on the planet. Not a single one has decided not to use this structure.
>the fact that banks are effectively permitted to create M2 money
A common misconception - it is not "free" money. It is backed by an exactly equal debt, netting zero in assets for the bank. To cover the risk that the borrower defaults, the bank charges interest. If the bank makes enough bad loans, the bank, not you, lose money.
The alternative is no loans, for college, cars, houses, payroll, etc.
>the governments (federal and state) essentially require a bank
To fund their functioning. How do you think the govt runs a deficit? Banks lend them money. Without the markets made by the banks to provide liquidity to govt, at the municipal, state, and federal level, society would be tremendously worse off.
Go spend time learning how the bond markets work, how treasuries work, detailed differences between the Fed and Treasury, and look at historical events and how they were paid for.
>the regulation is missing the bits where the banks may not refuse service or abuse their customers
Then you have not read any laws, ignore the many agencies that precisely do this, or the long history of punishments.
[1] https://novelinvestor.com/sector-performance/
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/727546/market-share-of-l...