In a scolding editorial yesterday, "Targeting Jamie Dimon," the WSJ
berates the "activist shareholders and the ususal media scolds pushing
for JP Morgan to strip Mr. Dimon of his Chairman's role in the name of
better corporate governance... that the JPMorgan chairman and CEO now finds
himself the target of a political campaign to weaken his authority and
shut him up." The WSJ goes on to pontificate that "The political
attention has been so intense that it became easy to forget that
despite the whale-trade losses, JP Morgan still earned the largest
profit in its history in 2012."
Really. Well, yes. But no mention is made that much of that profit was
made through prop trading, that is outright gambles financed in large
measure to almost limitless access of dirt cheap money at the Fed
window and access to federally insured depositors money ironically
deposited into the bank for safe keeping. For JPMorgan proprietary
trading is the name of the game, whether it be in financial
instruments, copper and other metals, oil and petroleum products,
anomalies in the electric grid, practically anything that walks and
talks and is traded on the commodity exchanges.
Yes, "Mr. Dimon became a Beltway-union-media target by speaking against
Washington's regulatory frenzy in the wake of the 2010 Dodd-Frank
law. He has highlighted the costs of the myriad new rules emanating from
the capital, such as the Volcker Rule, which is still unfinished three
years on." Yet hardly a mention that the Volcker Rule is still
"unfinished three years on" is because of Dimon and JPMorgan's intense,
no holds barred lobbying against its implemantation. Ironically had the
Volker rule been in effect, JPMorgan's London Whale debacle would not
have been possible.