It's really a must read column at CNBC today because the commissioner he confirms what many of us have known since the initial banking crisis starting. The bankers are little more than a bunch of gamblers and their crying to Washington has been proven to be false with this latest collapse.
Thankfully the most arrogant and most obnoxious mouth on Wall Street has been the CEO of JP Morgan, the bank that is $2 billion lighter than they were just a few weeks ago. And yes, we're talking about the Jamie Dimon who called banking rules that would protect Americans and investors, anti-American. The Jamie Dimon who said journalist make too much money. The same Jamie Dimon who made $42 million last year. The guy who received an easy settlement from the SEC and who still complained the regulations were burdensome.
Jamie Dimon probably won't be learning any lessons from this self inflicted $2 billion loss but the political class should. But will they?
Yesterday, JPMorgan Chase reported mammoth losses—over $2 billion—a significant amount of which appear to be related to failed speculative bets on credit default swaps. While that won't trigger a repeat of 2008, it certainly highlights what we already know, painfully well: reckless speculation and poor risk management by large, interconnected financial institutions can spark financial calamities.
These circumstances take on a fantasy-world quality in that many of us continue to believe the bankers are so scary smart about our markets and economy. What it really demonstrates is what chumps we sometimes have become.
These guys drove the economy into the ground like a lightning bolt and still have the gall to tell Congress, the President and regulators how wrong it was to rein in Wild West style trading in unregulated markets—trading that has cost a single bank $2 billion in six weeks' time and required a bail out of $414 billion as a result of non-existent regulation in the dark over-the-counter trading world in 2008.
