Jamie Dimon testifying at Senate Banking Hearing June 13, 2012
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee today that “there are no off-balance sheet vehicles…” But JPMorgan Chase’s financial filings with the SEC for 2011 tell a different story. Those documents state: “Includes off–balance sheet risk-weighted assets at December 31, 2011, of $301.1 billion, $291.0 billion and $38 million…for JPMorgan Chase, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Chase Bank USA, N.A., respectively.” Dimon was not asked to testify under oath today.
In an exchange with Senator Bob Menendez, Dimon said he never criticized the new regulatory requirements for increased capital for banks. Senator Menendez said he did. Dimon said that was untrue. The Senator was referring to an interview Dimon gave to the Financial Times of London which was published on September 12, 2011. The Financial Times reported as follows:
Dimon: “ ‘I’m very close to thinking the United States shouldn’t be in Basel any more. I would not have agreed to rules that are blatantly anti-American,’ he said. ‘Our regulators should go there and say: ‘If it’s not in the interests of the United States, we’re not doing it’. He [Dimon] objected to both the additional buffer of 2.5 per cent and the way capital is calculated.”
The 2.5 per cent buffer refers to the additional capital that would be required for the largest banks.
Senator Bob Menendez at Senate Banking Hearing June 13, 2012
Dimon has not only complained repeatedly since 2009 about the new financial reform rules in his written statements in the shareholders’ annual reports but his former Chief Risk Officer, Barry Zubrow, who was elevated in January of this year to lead regulatory matters and public relations, has written arrogant letters chiding reforms to the bank’s regulators. On April 30 of this year, Zubrow sent this 29-page letter to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, effectively telling the Board that it was clueless when it came to risk management. Zubrow, according to Bloomberg News, put his brother-in-law, Irvin Goldman, in charge of risk management at the Chief Investment Office, the unit that is hemorrhaging billions.
