So Jamie Dimon goes to the Hill to explain how his company managed to blow 2 billion on bad bets, and rather than tough questioning, our paid in full Senate bowed to kiss the ring:
The long-shot big hope for Wall Street reformers Wednesday was that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon would trip up before the Senate Banking Committee and expose the need for tighter rules governing big banks. His firm, after all, recently lost billions making risky bets with depositor funds on the line.
Instead, with some notable exceptions, the senators themselves turned the cross-examination into a coronation, and exposed the extent to which elected officials still feel compelled to genuflect to powerful financial interests.
“You’re obviously renowned, rightfully so I think, as being one of the most, you know, one of the best CEOs in the country for financial institutions,” crooned Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). “You missed this, it’s a blip on the radar screen.”
Banksters run our world.
cathyx
If he gave you a few hundred thousand dollars I bet you’d kiss his ring too.
ETA: in fact you might even kiss him on the lips with tongue.
shortstop
This kind of stuff is nauseating to me.
gogol's wife
@shortstop:
Just reading that one quotation is about all I can take.
MeDrewNotYou
This wasn’t a kiss on the lips with tongue. This was another orifice entirely.
Still with tongue, though.
beltane
I’m sure the grovelling of our elected representatives before their overlords was most pleasing to David Brooks.
The Dangerman
There was much bowing, but no ring was kissed (since when was Linda Lovelace elected to office?).
ETA: Shakes fist at Drew.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m sure all the Tea Baggers who voted for DeMent, Corker et al are furious. The Tea Baggers are all about the Wall St Bailout, you know.
Turgidson
This needs the “Bring on the Meteor” tag, I think.
I threw up in my mouth a little.
Brachiator
Also in the news, these headlines from BBC
It may be the banksters’ world, but the world is rockin’
Roger Moore
Where is Madam Defarge? I think she has some knitting to do.
Turgidson
@Brachiator:
The shitshow in Europe is the biggest variable that concerns me about Obama’s reelection. If they could just not suck so bad until November, I wouldn’t be particularly worried.
FlipYrWhig
Still not as bad as that Republican Congressman saying to the head of BP that the fund for compensation to spill victims was a “shakedown.”
RossInDetroit
A ‘blip?’ A fucking $2,000,000,000.00 blip is what it was. This is my bank, and it’s no blip to me.
Linnaeus
I’m hard-pressed in recent months to think of what use there is to our House of Lords.
piratedan
you know, a blip… like a rocket booster into the sun, whoocoodanode?
FlipYrWhig
Incidentally, one of the fawners (at least according to the TPM account) is Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet. Whenever I do lists of Democratic conservative/moderate/centrist senators, I think I forget to include him in the list of irritants. But he belongs there.
Ben Franklin
Why isn’t Rmoney (sic) kicking Obama’s ass by 10 points, right now.? Reading their comments, wingerz seem to be intoxicated with the way the campaign is going.
What could go wrong?
jl
I read the TPM article and watched the video of some of the exchange with Merkley. Looks like only three or so Senators challenged him in any way.
Not sure it is ring kissing. The quotes in TPM suggested a number of other motives to me: signal financial sector friendliness to potential mega tycoon and corporate contributors, political agenda pimping with a powerful financier. All related to ring kissing but not the same.
My view is that while important that all stakeholders have a chance to air their grievances schmooze,
engage in probably corrupt signalling and mutual grooming behaviors,troll for contributorspresent their wise thoughtful views, hearings like this are not very important in terms of determining good policy.What Dimon thinks, whether he is sad, or happy, carefree, calm, slightly perturbed, cocky, sober, contrite, or apologetic, or an ass, or temporizing, or whatever, makes no differences. Whether he thought he was careful or not, makes no difference.
The system remains dangerously unstable, and it makes no difference whether all the powerful actors thought they were doing the best things, the wise thing, the prudent thing. Dimon can say what he wants, and think what he wants, it makes no difference in terms of what the best policy is.
Also, in my opinion, Dimon has already
lied his ass offhas shown somewhat less respect for veracity than one would wish, about his role in the bad deal. Another reason why his testimony should not be taken very seriously.Valdivia
Today was just proof that Congress in general is not a place where you can actually pass truly aggressive financial reform no matter the size of Obama’s bully pulpit.
Secretly Jealous of Nickleback
Jamie Dimon stole my lunch money.
JGabriel
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Shorter GOP: Bring us your money, Jaime. Come to the dark side. We have cookies.
.
Violet
Our elected representatives know who’s funding their expensive lifestyles and it ain’t their constituents.
Brachiator
@Turgidson:
On the other hand, I have not seen Mittens weigh in on this with anything other than “I’m rich, so I must be a master economist.” I don’t know if the GOP will come up with something that sounds persuasive, or if Romney will come off as hapless as McCain when it comes to serious discussion and debate.
So, as gloomy as the economic picture is looking, I am not yet worried about Obama.
Yes, for purposes of the November election, I am an Obot, and I approve this message.
Valdivia
@Brachiator:
smells like a good old run on all the country’s banks.
shinobi
This hearing presented a vivid picture of who congress cares about. Before the hearing started protesters were shouting about foreclosures, a woman spoke of having her home taken away before being removed. Then the committee goes on to laud a man who lost enough money to save at least 2000 homes. Disgusting.
TooManyJens
Many, many more nauseating quotes here:
bemused
Jim DeMint wanted Dimon’s advice on regulations. Oy.
JPL
@TooManyJens: What could be wrong with Dimon writing up new regulations… hmm
This reminds me of a story about a fox and a hen house.
Cap'n Magic
JPM is fucked six ways from Sunday if the Eurozone goes tits-up:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/about/pifs/symposia/europe/baer.pdf
As Yves Smith noted:
Another take:
And now comes the coup de grace, courtesy CATO:
David Koch
Bob Corker says Charles Mansion is misunderstood, “the Tate/LaBianca massacres were just a blip”, said the Tennessee Senator.
jl
I posted a few days ago link on Robert Engle, who estimated that capital requirement shortfalls in banking sector approaching those before the 2008 panic. No time to find it now, but that is an example of systematic problem that some rich dude who just oversaw a huge mistake cannot control.
No one knows whether systematic risk now is such that a capital shortfall of similar size as that before the panic would present a similar risk of collapse.
But for too big to fail banks, that kind of known unknown is a big problem. Dimon can talk all night about how smart and rich and whatever he and his people are and it would make no difference.
BTW, Engle is one of the economists who ran around in the months before the 2008 panic warning the financial wizards (or at least their technical minions, he may be considered too liberal, or dangerously ‘fact driven’, to get a hearing with the wizards themselves) that their models were falling apart.
He also has a Nobel Memorial Economics Prize. But the fact that he was one of the economists who showed evidence before the panic that he knew what was up (Stiglitz is another) shows that his analysis should taken seriously.
shinobi
That should be 20,000 homes, stupid phone.
Cap'n Magic
FYWP.
Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism, on this:
Another view:
Last, but not least, CATO:
Ruckus
Nothing new here, y’all move on now ya hear.
Did anyone expect anything different? I sure didn’t. Dog bites man, politician sucks banker cock, not on the news at 11.
HelpThe99ers
@RossInDetroit:
Not that $2 billion wasn’t bad enough – the real number might end up closer to $8 billion:
But, you know what they say: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.”
Cap'n Magic
Guess I’ve been blocked. Go to naked capitlaims and read about Dimon’s performance before Congress.
JGabriel
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TooManyJens:
For better or worse (largely worse at present, IMO), Dimon is a Democrat, who is very wealthy and runs a corporation that manages a shit-megaton of money.
The Democratic Senators don’t want Dimon to think they’re being mean to him and push him into the GOP, while Republicans want to seduce him into joining their team and throwing some of that
MidasMorgan money their way.The whole ass-kissing/rim-job spectacle is revolting and discouraging, to be sure, but it’s hardly surprising.
.
MikeJ
@RossInDetroit:
They lost 2 billion on 100 billion in bets.
If you went to the horse track with $100 and lost $2 how upset would you be?
Reklam
This why I genuflect to just authority and admit I could never do a Senator’s job; because just reading that quote makes me gag and Bob Corker lacks that reflex.
Cap'n Magic
FYWP FYWP FYWP…..
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Depends. Are you using my money to support your gambling habit without my knowledge after I trusted you with it?
JGabriel
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HelpThe99ers:
Yep. I’ve been sitting here wondering about that meself.
Seems I remember this starting as a $4 billion mistake, followed by oopsies, make that 6 or 7 billion, followed by wait wait wait, it’s probably more, we’re still counting.
How did this get dropped down to $2 billion in today’s reports?
.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Ding ding ding. “Support Romney over Obama, and we’ll make sure there’s no more of this nasty talk about tighter regulation of banks.”
jl
@JGabriel: The bad position is still unwinding. The loss was two billion minimum several weeks ago on the position itself, and another six to eight in company stock market value. I read someplace a few weeks ago that Morgan will be exposed to additional losses on the position for at least two months.
If things go wrong again, the losses will grow. Maybe the august Senators were not aware, but they are not talking about something that is over and done with.
And, IMHO, Dimon lied about his role in it. Deliberately lied and pushed phony stories to hide his direct oversight of the position.
gorram
It’s days like this when I think maybe a death threat or two would do Congress some good.
The feeling doesn’t last, since I know it’ll just be another excuse to lock up more of us poors in prison.
Roger Moore
@Secretly Jealous of Nickleback:
FTFY.
RossInDetroit
@MikeJ:
J P Morgan Chase has no fucking business trying to make a killing at the track, and that’s what they were doing. They used a system that was supposed to provide insurance to offset risks in other portions of the business as a money maker by gambling on the markets. The $2B isn’t the issue, it’s that they were taking risks where they were supposed to be playing it safe.
mac
I think this is a C.R.E.A.M post, not a “free markets solve everything.”
PurpleGirl
@Roger Moore: Well, when I proctored SATs, GREs, etc. and walked up and down the aisles crocheting, the proctors nicknamed me Madam Defarge…
SiubhanDuinne
I guess the Senate Banking Commmittee had their own Dimon Jubilee.
ellennelle
hm. the us senate banking committee’s website appears to be having some trouble.
Maude
@RossInDetroit:
It comes down to disclosure. If JPM didn’t disclose, well, bye, bye Dimon.
mainmati
@cathyx:
ETA is still not in the Lexicon
Extra Terrestrial Alien
Estimated Time of Arrival
Extremist Teabagging A-holes
Shall I go on or is someone going to give a definition?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mainmati: I believe in this context it means “edited to add”. Dunno why that’s used here as the edit time window seems to only be 5 minutes.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Canuckistani Tom
@mainmati:
I’ve assumed that ETA=Extra Text Added
mzrad
The next time these motherfuckers talk about how expensive it is to [fill in the blank: pay teachers, fund Planned Parenthood, mitigate environmental disasters, etc.], remind them that Sen. Jim DeMint and the other guys just said that $2 billion is chump change. So, that means a few million for these programs isn’t any big deal, right? Right?!
Mnemosyne
@mainmati:
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
ETA is used here to indicate that you submitted a comment and then decided to edit or add text after it was visible to the other commenters.
Here at B-J, it’s considered courteous to alert people to the fact that you edited the text after it was visible. As with any community standard, you don’t have to do it, but be prepared for people to think you’re a douchebag if you don’t.
fuckwit
No, I’m sorry. That was not a kiss on the lips with tongue.
That was a kiss on the anus, with tongue.