Do you like DMP Pizza?, page-83

At worst if there is a painful contraction, which judging by M3 is increasingly possible, the bank will have a big increase in the provision for doubtful debts which will only have a negative statutory impact on the income statement and simply lead to an equal but opposing positive statutory impact on the way back out of the crisis. Why do you think the banks starting running super profits straight after the GFC? The underlying earnings were barely affected and the "statutory losses" were a useful subterfuge for public consumption. Again, it is the spread that matters, not the level of interest rates; banks are an intermediary, they don't finance their own loan books.