I found myself conflicted today with David Gregory's Meet the Press interview with JP Morgan/Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. On one hand I want to crucify what this man stands for being both the CEO of arguably one of the biggest players in the great depression of 2008, a company that had just as many boiler room MBA's creating shady derivatives that placed bets on bets and then collateralizing them as Goldman Sachs AND one of the New York's Federal Reserve Presidents that make our monetary policy for this country. This man holds more power and sway than even the president yet here he was, on national TV with humble pie all over his face leveling with the American people saying in essence, I screwed up as leader of my company. On the face alone I admire what he did and hope he enlightened many of his peers. Peers who may be doing similar risky speculations but may not live by the personal responsibility standard this man lives by, personal responsibility that most likely will get him fired by the shareholders of that corporation.
For me, on its face is not enough. This is getting to be typical behavior from Wall Street and should be a clarion call for those that understand what this Wall Street casino climate did to our economy because of its lax over site and weak regulations. Remember how when Drexel Burnham was found out for the same type of risky derivative trading? Remember how Wall Street reassured us that they will not do these type of things again? This is just another example that our financial institutions can not police themselves and lends credibility to those who warned how the repeal of the Glass/Steagal act would blur the lines that separated safe commercial banking practices from the risky speculation and casino climate the Wall Street investment houses now practice. How these same Wall Street Banks through lobbyists are trying to do everything they can do to de-regulate the most current set of weakened regulations that were put in place just to try and protect us from another large scale meltdown with modest consumer protections. I understand when Dimon said there is a disconnect between the regulators at the SEC and the regulators at Treasury and think this is a fundamental problem with our regulatory environment because in my opinion the stronger federal law should have precedence and the agency that's tasked with the enforcement of the law should be held to account. I do not believe these banks learned any lessons since 2008 except that they must have to find another market to play and hope they make it obscure enough that no one can decipher what they are really doing. I see this happening currently in the energy and commodities markets but I digress, this whole issue, if anything, must be about transparency.
Why transparency? I am a shareholder in my mutual funds of such pillars of our economy as JP Morgan/ Chase. I didn't chose these funds because of JP but as most Americans I tend to invest blindly in what my broker puts me into because I'm a busy guy and its his world to know. I as a shareholder think I should have a choice in what my investments do. I mean, since the Supreme Courts decision to proclaim that corporations are people and have the right to speech, shouldn't I as a shareholder have a voice on what my stock should or shouldn't be investing in? Are we not the people that are the corporation? Jamie Dimon and his decisions lost my stock a proportionate amount of that 2 billion dollar loss and the stock share price is being pressured because of it; yet Mr. Dimon and the other execs will get their millions in salary and hundreds of millions in stock options for failure? I am sure JP Morgan gives money to superpacs that fund campaigns, I am also sure JP Morgan gives millions to lobbyists to try and weaken laws on the books and probably through some fund or another actually give money to groups like ALEC to coordinate direct interaction with legislators writing their own set of rules for their hand picked legislators to vote on. Corporations that have this much power over our economy should be transparent and on public record in all its forms. Derivatives trading and tranched CDO's should be transparent and public. We need to know what corporations that receive tax dollars as subsidies, bailouts, special dispensation laws are doing at all times.
I like making money on my stock portfolio because between you and me I don't really trust the Washington crowd to keep their hands off my government medicare or social security and I want to retire someday. We already know one side of the political equation wants to privatize it all so these huge monolithic financial corporations can get more business and large sums of money to continue the churn of risk trading. I figure since I am an owner through my stock and get voting rights, I should probably have a say in what corporations spend my hard earned investment dollars on, what schemes they cook up, and what they say as political speech. I think its fair considering that I don't believe this will be the last big financial corporation to parade out into public its executives and apologize for what their companies did. I am emphatically against the notion that they think they can self regulate themselves and abhor the fact that after damage and subsequent exposure they only get slapped on the wrist to then disappear behind the conference room door to listen to another risky hedging strategy that could take down our economy again. Jamie Dimon may be someone to be admired because of the humility he exhibited, but for his industry, I believe words just are not enough anymore. Regulate these guys please. When will we learn? #wakeup #ows #p2
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