[Vision2020] Why JPMorgan gets away with bad bets

[Donovan Arnold]

Why is it when the government gives a person that lost their job do to the greed of a corporation they worked for, it is called a handout; But when the government gives money to wealthy CEOs that gambled and lost it all the jobs, it is called supporting the economy? 
 
JP Morgan is like the bratty rich kid that owned the monopoly board, and thus thinks he gets to make the rules and regulations for the game whenever he wants so he always wins. If free market capitalism were to take place, the kid would lose, frequently. Same goes for a real true competitive market. The bad companies would be weeded out, not protected by the government and allowed to reek havoc on the economy. We don't live in a true capitalistic market anymore, we live in an oligarchy economy where there are only one, two or three players in each market and those two or three control all the rules and regulations in that market. 
 
Most government regulations are not barriers for large multimillionaire companies. They are barriers for the mom and pop shops. What business can someone open today without bumping into 1000s of regulations and requirements that cost millions of dollars? Regulations written by the larger corporations and passed by legislators funded by the corporations controlling the market. 
 
Regulations are written by the companies so that they stay in power, and others stay out of power and out of money. Corporations don't spend billions of dollars on political campaigns because they are supporting their communities or making a bad business investment. They do it to control their opposition and to maximize profits by changing the rules in their favor. 
 
Small farmers have been wiped out too because of a regulations giving subsidizes intended for them to big multi-billion dollar agricultural companies. 
 
It isn't that their isn't regulations, it is that the restrictive regulations don't apply to big corporations, just others that want to compete. If the government let big banks and financial institutions fail, the smaller more responsible ones would have filled the void. But US regulations and laws were changed to prevent that and to support the big corporations to stay in power. It was new regulations that created that problem, not less. And now, all big corporations know they cannot fail because of US regulations and will continue to do what they want, with total impunity. They will take all they profits when the risks are successful, and they will pass all the losses on to the taxpayer. If that isn't government regulation and interference in a free market, what is? 
 
Donovan J. Arnold
 
 
From: Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com>
To: Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com> 
Cc: "vision2020 at moscow.com" <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Why JPMorgan gets away with bad bets

How, in the HELL, will deregulation level the proverbial playing field for small businesses that compete against humongous conglomerates that pick their teeth with the remains of small businesses they destroy? 
Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown


On May 15, 2012, at 12:17, Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com> wrote:
How to fuck up badly, but still make $23 Million:http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/15/markets/jpmorgan-shareholder-meeting/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2Be a member of the good ole boys/girls club, then anything goes.Donovan,While I agree with most of what you say, I think the call for deregulation is misguided since deregulation and no regulation is what got us into the present economic mess.  But I am for more intelligent, carefully designed regulation.  Greed, ignorance, and arrogance are not rare qualities.  Smart regulation is the way to keep such qualities from messing up the world even more than it is messed up now.w. 
>On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:08 PM, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote: 
>"To big to fail", is a good argument to return to smaller locally owned businesses and local credit unions. Putting more than 20%-95% of a market into one entity puts the entire nation at risk when it fails. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" is an odd proverb forgotten.  It is time to deregulate so small businesses can compete and large businesses have to play by the same rules as everyone else.
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>>Just think if JP Morgan had not missed his planned voyage aboard the Titanic 100 years ago, this whole mess would have been avoided. 
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>>Donovan J. Arnold
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>>From: Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com>
>>To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
>>Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 10:43 AM
>>Subject: [Vision2020] Why JPMorgan gets away with bad bets
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>>Why JPMorgan gets away with bad bets
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>>By William K. Black , Special to CNN
>>updated 5:39 AM EDT, Tue May 15, 2012 CNN.com 
>>Editor's note: William K. Black is an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former senior financial regulator and a white-collar criminologist, he is the author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One." 
>>(CNN) -- JPMorgan Chase can be considered a systemically dangerous institution, which means that it is "too big to fail" because the government fears that its collapse would cause a global financial crisis.
>>It is simply irrational to allow such an institution to exist, especially when it can easily incur a $2 billion trading loss.
>>Banks are more efficient when shrunk to the point that they can no longer endanger the world economy. But because JPMorgan and similar banks are the leading contributors to Democrats and Republicans, neither political party has the courage to order them to reform.
>>The Volcker Rule, which aims to prevent insured banks from engaging in speculative bets, was passed as part of the Dodd-Frank Act over the objections of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and almost the entire Republican congressional delegation.
>>CNNMoney: JPMorgan investment chief out
>>Back in 2008 when the financial crisis hit us hard, a host of large institutions were destroyed. AIG, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Washington Mutual and Wachovia all suffered massive losses on their toxic derivatives, particularly collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and credit default swaps (CDS), better known as "green slime." One would think everyone has learned a lesson. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan's CEO, now agrees that banks should not invest in derivatives. But government subsidies have a way of encouraging fraud and speculation.
>>JPMorgan, the nation's largest bank, receives an explicit federal subsidy (deposit insurance) and a much larger implicit federal subsidy. It's improper for the megabank to use these subsidies to speculate in derivatives. And yet it can do so with hardly any serious regulatory consequences.
>>Followand 
>>Capitol Hill reacts to JPMorgan's loss 
>>Sen. Corker calls for JPMorgan hearing 
>>Sheila Bair on JPMorgan's loss 
>>Financial institutions such as JPMorgan love to buy derivatives because they are opaque, create fictional income that leads to real bonuses and when (not if) they suffer losses so large that they would cause the bank to fail, they will be bailed out.
>>The Dodd-Frank Act's Volcker Rule was designed to solve the problem.
>>However, JPMorgan led the effort to gut the Volcker Rule and the provision that requires transparency. JPMorgan is the world's largest proprietary purchaser of financial derivatives -- precisely what the Volcker Rule sought to end. The bank claims that it does not engage in proprietary trading and that it purchases derivatives solely to hedge. That claim is an example of what Stephen Colbert meant when he invented the term: "truthiness."
>>A hedge is an investment that offsets losses in another investment. JPMorgan's supposed hedges aren't hedges under accounting rules because they haven't been shown to perform as hedges.
>>JPMorgan bought tens of billions of dollars of derivatives that increased its losses rather than reduced them. It calls these anti-hedges "hedges" -- in other words, it practiced "hedginess." The bank's approach to hedging is that it would like to purchase a derivative if it deems that derivative to be a hedge to something else and voila, it's a hedge.
>>The draft regulations of the Volcker Rule allow such faux hedges because JPMorgan lobbied to render the rule useless. JPMorgan asserts that these inherently unsafe and unsound anti-hedges are "hedges" as that term is defined in the draft regulations implementing the Volcker Rule. But if hedginess is permissible, the Volcker rule is unenforceable.
>>It is a travesty for JPMorgan to be able to create an additional $2 billion in losses through investments that are supposed to be allowed only if they reduce losses. The government must revise the regulations and reject JPMorgan's absurd treatment of anti-hedges as hedges.
>>Faux hedges are a common, dangerous abuse and a lethal form of speculation. From 2003 to 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission caught mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac violating hedge accounting to maximize their executives' compensation. Fannie's faux hedges, like JPMorgan's faux hedges, increased losses. The Justice Department failed to prosecute, and the senior executives walked away wealthy. Their successors blew up Fannie and cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
>>When a bank CEO is honest but incompetent, faux hedges simultaneously increase risk and create a false complacency that the hedge has offset the risk. This can cause catastrophic losses.
>>Dishonest bank CEOs use faux hedges to loot the bank by creating fictional income and hiding real losses. The fake income makes the CEO wealthy by maximizing his compensation.
>>The current JPMorgan speculation in derivatives weakens but will not kill the bank. If it and other systemically dangerous institutions continue to engage in hedginess, it is only a matter of time before we'll get a replay of the financial crisis. And who'll lose out? Taxpayers like you and me, of course.
>>The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of William K. Black. 
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>>  -- Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)art.deco.studios at gmail.com=======================================================List services made available by First Step Internet,serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.              http://www.fsr.net          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com=======================================================-- Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)art.deco.studios at gmail.com
=======================================================List services made available by First Step Internet,serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.              http://www.fsr.net         mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com==============================================================================================================List services made available by First Step Internet,serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.              http://www.fsr.net          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com=======================================================
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