Search Results for: Jamie Dimon

By Pam Martens: October 22, 2013 It’s difficult to take a major newspaper seriously when its editorial page lives in the land of Oz. Reading “The Morgan Shakedown” yesterday in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal is the latest reminder of just how detached from reality these opinion writers are. The editorial attempted revisionist history for JPMorgan by misinforming the public that “Federal law enforcers are confiscating roughly half of a company’s annual earnings for no other reason than because they can and because they want to appease their left-wing populist allies.” It’s pretty hard for one editorial to get so many facts and the big picture so horribly wrong. First, left-wing populists will be happy with nothing less than Jamie Dimon losing his dapper worsted wools and presidential cufflinks for an orange jumpsuit. Second, JPMorgan’s earnings last year were $21.3 billion so a proposed “confiscation” of $13 billion … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 24, 2013  For five solid years, the highs and lows of JPMorgan’s Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, have been splashed across the headlines of the business press. First he was the Wall Street hero who came through the 2008 financial crisis unscathed. He sprinkled the phrase “fortress balance sheet” throughout his media interviews. He lectured Washington against over-regulating big banks (despite the fact they had just collapsed the largest economy in the world). He called international plans to require more bank capital reserves “anti-American.” He was the reigning King of Wall Street and he relished the limelight.  And then, in an instant, the King’s crown was tarnished. His glib tongue uttered the immortal words “tempest in a teapot” over outsized bets by his derivatives traders in London, only to have to eat back that phrase, letter by letter, billion by billion in reported losses over the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 6, 2013  U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, whose loan dealings with New York University and acceptance of $940,000 in bonus money from taxpayer bailout funds paid to the insolvent Citigroup in early 2009 rendered him a scandalous choice for the high treasury post in the Obama administration, is fully living up to his past reputation.  Last Thursday, May 2, the U.S. Treasury released its “Daily Treasury Guidance” which lets the public know what the U.S. Treasury Secretary will be doing each day on behalf of the taxpayer who is paying his salary and on whose behalf he is supposed to be working.  The guidance for last Thursday noted that Secretary Lew would be departing Washington for New York in the afternoon “where he will attend a roundtable with business leaders hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) to discuss the state of the U.S. and global economies. This … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: April 11, 2013  If President Obama is trying to make it clear that he reports to the 1 percent, not the average Americans who elected him, he’s earning an A+ on his report card.  At 6:46 p.m. last evening, the White House sent out the President’s schedule for today. One item on the agenda reads as follows: “Later in the morning, the President will meet with members of the Financial Services Forum as part of the organization’s daylong Spring Meeting. This meeting in the Roosevelt Room is closed press.” There is no mention in this press announcement that the President will be meeting with the CEOs of the too-big-to-fail banks – certainly a detail worthy of the public’s attention. Early this morning, the Wall Street Journal’s link on the front page of its web site to its story on the President’s meet-up with members of the Financial Services … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 26, 2013 The only entity less deserving of an Investor Relations award is the magazine that just gave one to JPMorgan’s Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, last Thursday evening. Six days before the awards event hosted by IR Magazine (that stands for Investor Relations Magazine but could also stand for Insane Rationale Magazine) which went unattended by Dimon (likely out of fear he might trip over the people rolling on the floor at his award) the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 307 page report and 98 exhibits proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dimon and his CFO at the time, Douglas Braunstein, either lied through their teeth to investors and investment analysts or were in the dark about what was going on within their own company when the Chief Investment Office churned $6.2 billion of bank deposits into pocket change. At … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 4, 2013  Last November, one of Europe’s largest publications, the German news magazine Der Spiegel, splashed a terminally ill Uncle Sam on its front cover. Inside we are told that “Many developing countries are now looking to China instead of the US as a role model on how to structure a country. They are no longer seeking the light of the American beacon on the horizon.”  One of the reasons cited by the article for America’s decline is that our best and brightest no longer focus their talents and energies on enriching America’s future, but rush to Wall Street to line their own pockets: “About a third of the students in every graduating class at Harvard University accepts jobs in investment banking and consulting, or with hedge funds — that is, industries that produce one thing above all: fast money…” reads the article.  Last week, Wall Street’s … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: January 17, 2013  Wall Street’s thoroughly discredited self-regulation that has blazed a trail of corruption across much of the securities trading landscape of America, has now given birth to a new brand of hubris – self investigation and self reporting.  Yesterday, JPMorgan released a report from its Board of Directors that found [drum roll] that the Board was not culpable in the London Whale episode, it just needed to tweak a few things going forward. London Whale refers to the blowing up of $6.2 billion of insured deposits at JPMorgan’s commercial bank through reckless trading in derivatives in London.  Likewise, a 132-page Task Force report was released which found CEO Jamie Dimon guilty of no greater sin than being too reliant on information from below. The report said: “As Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Dimon could appropriately rely upon senior managers who directly reported to him to escalate significant … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: November 28, 2012 Apparently news travels slowly from Gotham to Omaha. When Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and so-called Oracle of Omaha appeared on the Charlie Rose show on PBS Monday evening and praised the idea of Jamie Dimon as the next Treasury Secretary, he sounded less oracle and more out-of-touch cheerleader. Buffett was making the media rounds with Fortune’s Carol Loomis, who has written a glowing  book on Buffett, Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2012. When asked by Rose what message it would send if President Obama appointed Jamie Dimon as the next Treasury Secretary, Buffett had this to say: “I think Jamie Dimon actually would be, I think he’d be terrific, because if we did run into problems in markets, I think he would actually be the best person you could have in the job and I think the world leaders … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 10, 2012  Last week the business media was buzzing about a newly ramped up investigation into the $5.8 billion in losses thus far reported by JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office in what is now dubbed the London Whale trade.  The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Chaired by Carl Levin, is reportedly interviewing former personnel who worked in that division, based in London as well as New York.  Levin’s powerful subcommittee has jurisdiction to conduct investigations into a wide array of issues, including fraud and abuse, and corporate crime.  The real breaking news on this matter, however, occurred on May 13 of this year when Levin appeared on Meet the Press.  Host David Gregory asked Levin what should be the price for what occurred at JPMorgan.  Levin has this to say:  “In terms of past activities, that’s in the hands of people who are assessing whether there was any criminal … Continue reading →