It should be clear by now that Citigroup and Bank of America and perhaps other big banks already flunked the vaunted "stress tests" the government has been yammering about.

But the Fed, the banks, and the White House are all gaming the public about this issue of whether the banks need more money to weather the recession.

The Fed, in other words, is letting these banks take, re-take, and re-re-take these "tests" until they at least have a shot at passing.

In the meantime, the Fed is giving the banks another huge break. It has rejected pleas from two powerful senators, Chuck Schumer and Chris Dodd, to stop the banks from slapping retroactive interest-rate hikes on consumers' existing credit-card balances. This is the kind of issue that makes even Schumer look good. He's quoted as saying:

Will the banks' plundering, even after a financial crisis they caused, ever at least slow down? Don't think so.

Now, regarding these "stress tests": The results were supposed to be released May 4. Why weren't they? See two paragraphs buried in a Bloomberg story today:

So we can make a educated guess that at least those two banks flunked their tests. But the Fed gave them additional time, and during that time, their stock rose — it would have plummeted if the results had been released.

So now both banks are rejiggering their numbers. More likely, they're probably already done with that chore. Because what's maddening is that the government is turning over the new results of the stress tests today — not to the public but just to the banks.

And the banks promise to let everybody else know after the close of the markets on Thursday (May 7) just how well or how poorly they did. That means the banks have two full days to figure out how to spin the results or tweak them or further deal with the government to put themselves in the best possible light.

Is that the way you get to take tests these days?

What a sweet racket.