Monday, January 19, 2015

JP Morgan ‘Under Assault’ By Unpatriotic Regulators, CEO Says

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/01/15/3611830/ceo-whose-bank-epitomizes-need-for-tighter-regulation-wonders-if-tighter-regulation-is-un-american/
"In Dimon’s tenure, regulators have exposed JP Morgan’s involvement in numerous scandals. Three of those scandals are particularly instructive.
The bank joined other financial firms in an elaborate scheme to rig interest rates, an affair commonly known as the LIBOR Scandal, which had negative effects on a huge range of consumer credit products and hurt the financial outlook of many cities who had made bond deals tied to the rates JP Morgan helped manipulate. A rogue JP Morgan trader known colloquially as the London Whale was able to gamble the bank into a multi-billion-dollar loss on complex derivatives trades without any of his managers noticing and putting a stop to the highly risky behavior, which could have triggered a chain reaction within the global financial system. And Dimon’s firm has paid tens of billions of dollars in legal settlements over the bank’s role in mortgage-related financial market activity that helped exacerbate the financial crisis and ensuing recession.
None of these are dead matters. Each of the three illustrates a live question for how society will regulate the financial sector’s activity and its relationship to the real economy of goods and services and middle-class jobs."