FORTUNE — JPMorgan Chase said that it expensed $9.2 billion for legal costs in the third quarter, or over $3 billion a month. Law firms and regulators might delight in that number. The rest of us should despair. Here are six things JPMorgan could have bought with the money it put aside for legal fees and fines in the past three months alone.
1) Pay off the mortgages of 62,528 U.S. borrowers who are still facing foreclosure.
Around 700,000 borrowers in the U.S. are still behind on their mortgages. JPMorgan itself has $7.5 billion in home loans on which borrowers are no longer making payments.
2) Allow 291,980 recent college graduates to enter the workforce debt free.
3) Start 460 community banks.
Since the financial crisis about 1,608 banks have shut down or disappeared — most of them small or community banks. At the same time, assets at the nation’s six largest banks, of which JPMorgan is now the biggest, have grown 37% to $9.6 trillion.
4) Delay the debt ceiling by 3.5 days.
It costs roughly $10 billion a day to run the government, and we bring in about $7.4 billion in tax revenue a day. That means in theory JPMorgan’s $9.2 billion could delay the debt ceiling for three and a half days. In reality, the payments we owe are lumpy. For example the government owes $12 billion in interest payments on its debt on October 24 alone, which JPMorgan’s legal fees alone wouldn’t be able to cover.
5) Pull Detroit out of bankruptcy.
The Motor City recently filed for bankruptcy with about $18.5 billion in debt. JPMorgan’s legal bill could pay off half of that.
6) Build the Hyperloop!
Elon Musk estimates that it would cost $7.5 billion to build a high-speed transportation system that would get people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes. JPMorgan (JPM) could build that, and still have an additional $2 billion to work on Larry Page’s and Sergey Brin’s space elevator.
