16, May 2012 JP Morgan
It
is baffling to understand how JP Morgan CEO Mamie Dimon can still retain his
lofty position after he admitted that he and other bank executives repeatedly
ignored warnings of extremely risky trades. Doesn’t the buck stop at Dimon’s
desk? It seems as Dimon’s moral outrage was a carefully crafted to blunt public
criticism. It is also puzzling why President Obama would choose the occasion to
remind us that Dimon “is the smartest banker we’ve got’. If that is true, we are in big
trouble.
Surely
this is a wakeup call for more stringent regulations to rein Wall Street banks
who regard investors’ money as their pile of gambling chips. Gambling is a
serious addiction and executives are encouraged to place risky bets because
their huge bonuses are directly tied to their banks profits. These large, - too
big to fail - banks have a huge competitive advantage and pose a systemic risk
to taxpayers. Our lawmakers need to legislate ‘anti-trust’ laws to downsize
these banks to prevent another financial debacle. Let is bring back
Glass-Steagall to separate commerce and investment banking and apply the Volker
Rule which mandates more transparency in derivative trading. It is
disappointing that JP Morgan stockholders didn’t raise Caine and demand an end
to these obscene bonuses. Finally, in the interests of full disclosure,
President Obama should have admitted that JP Morgan had given him a nice juicy
check of $1 million to aid his re-election.
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