JPMorgan Chase bank fraud documented

This video is called US senators grill JPMorgan over hidden losses.

By Barry Grey in the USA:

Senate report documents fraud and lawbreaking by JPMorgan Chase

16 March 2013

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 300-page report Thursday documenting systematic fraud and deception by JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US bank, in connection with over $6.2 billion in losses from high-risk speculative trades in financial derivatives in 2012.

The losses, incurred by the bank’s London-based Chief Investment Office (CIO) and a trader dubbed the “London whale” because of the size of his bets, were concealed from investors, analysts, regulators and the public by the bank’s top management, including its chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon.

The report details from emails, phone conversations and interviews with bank officials the use of accounting gimmicks to vastly understate the scale of the losses in the first quarter of 2012, the withholding and falsification of information on the trading activities in reports made to the chief federal regulator of JPMorgan, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and misrepresentations and lies from top bank officials in public statements issued beginning last April, when press reports of the massive bets being made by the CIO’s Synthetic Credit Portfolio began to emerge.

The report also documents the complicity of federal regulators, led by the OCC, in the bank’s fraudulent activities. The OCC gave its stamp of approval when JPMorgan informed it in January 2012, as the losses at its Chief Investment Office were piling up, that it was altering its calculation of risk so as to free up more funds for speculative investments. The regulator did nothing when the bank stopped providing it with profit and loss reports from its CIO division concerning its Synthetic Credit Portfolio.

At a press conference Thursday, Senator Carl Levin (Democrat of Michigan), the chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said investigators “found a trading operation that piled on risk, ignored limits on risk taking, hid losses, dodged oversight and misinformed the public.”

The report demonstrates that nothing has changed on Wall Street since the financial meltdown four-and-a-half years ago that was triggered by rampant speculation and illegality on the part of the banks. The same types of exotic bets and parasitic wheeling and dealing—in the case of JPMorgan, with depositors’ money—that brought the global financial system to the point of collapse and ushered in a world slump, continue unabated. The bets that backfired for JPMorgan in early 2012 were a form of gambling on credit default swaps.

Likewise, the role of the government and regulatory agencies as protectors of the financial criminals remains unchanged.

Two years ago, the same Senate committee released a 630-page report on the practices that led to the banking crash of September 2008, documenting the role of major banks, regulatory agencies and credit rating firms. At the time, Senator Levin said his investigation had found “a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.” Yet not a single bank or high-ranking bank executive has been criminally charged, let alone convicted and sent to prison.

The report issued Thursday lays out a prima facie case for the criminal prosecution of the top executives of JPMorgan, including CEO Dimon. The cover-up of losses, use of accounting tricks to deceive investors, and issuing of false statements to regulators and the public are violations of federal securities statutes punishable by fines and jail terms.

But the report carefully avoids accusing the bank or any of its executives of breaking the law. The New York Times on Friday reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was looking into the JPMorgan “London whale” losses and planned to interview top executives in the coming weeks, including Dimon. It added, however, that “authorities do not suspect the chief executive of wrongdoing.”

Britain: The Banking Standards Commission selects three scapegoats for the capitalist crisis: here.

Related articles

• Braunstein Repeats ‘I Don’t Recall’ at Senate Grilling on Dimon – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• Senate JPMorgan Report Gives SEC Road Map for Potential Lawsuit (bloomberg.com)
• JPMorgan Faulted on Controls and Disclosure in Trading Loss (dealbook.nytimes.com)
• JPMorgan Chase Slammed for Lying, Hiding Losses (hispanicbusiness.com)
• Jamie Dimon Lied To Regulators. Will He Be Indicted? Ha, Ha! (crooksandliars.com)
• Senate Report Blames JPMorgan Senior Managers For Bad Bets That Led To ‘Whale’ Loss (huffingtonpost.com)
• Probe: JPMorgan misled, dodged regulators (newsday.com)
• John Cassidy – Will The London Whale Swallow Jamie Dimon? – 17 March 2013 (lucas2012infos.wordpress.com)

Bankers’ arrogance at Davos forum

This video from the USA is called UBS Bank Fined $1.5 Billion For LIBOR Scandal.

By Bill Benfield:

Banking elite turns its back on demand for regulation

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Leading world bankers at the annual World Economic Forum beano closed ranks today in the face of outside demands to regulate their industry.

Bankers have been widely and accurately blamed for the financial crisis that has damaged economies across the world.

But JP Morgan chairman Jamie Dimon insisted: “We’re doing the right thing.”

He insisted that “there will be a financial services sector” whether critics liked it or not.

Mr Dimon said the world needs banks so that people can get on with their everyday lives.

He was recently forced to take a 50 per cent cut in his pay – to £7.25 million – after JP Morgan lost billions in a debt gamble.

Mr Dimon claimed that governments couldn’t function without banks.

JP Morgan and nine others agreed earlier this month to cough up £5.4 billion to settle US charges that they had wrongfully foreclosed on struggling homeowners.

Former central banker and current UBS chairman Axel Weber acknowledged the “excesses” of the past but said it was pointless to debate breaking up banks.

“Where does the financial sector start or stop?” he asked. “It’s so intricately linked we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater … We all provide valuable social functions.”

UBS agreed in December to pay £950m to regulators for manipulating the Libor interbank lending rate.

The banking bosses were in Davos, Switzerland, at the annual invitation-only gathering of more than 2,500 corporate big shots.

The forum has been accused of clinging to a capitalist model that has sparked waves of financial meltdowns.

At the event in the posh Alpine resort, business elites party in luxury hotels to make deals and debate the world’s problems.

But many pin them with the ultimate responsibility.

Even IMF deputy managing director Min Zhu questioned the bankers’ assertion that the financial sector is doing fine.

“The financial sector is too big,” he said. “The products are too complicated. Transparency is not there.”

Related articles

• Updated: Big bankers at Davos defend selves against critics (macleans.ca)
• Leading world bankers on defensive in Davos (panarmenian.net)

US fat cats demand cuts to poor people

This video from the USA says about itself:

Nov 13, 2012

As the White House begins a series of meetings today on the looming “fiscal cliff,” a coalition of the largest corporate firms and advocacy groups is lobbying for wide-ranging cuts in government spending, including to programs like Medicare and Social Security.

The group, which includes 80 of the country’s most powerful CEOs, is called The Campaign to Fix the Debt. It was co-founded by former Clinton White House chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, previously the co-chairs of President Obama’s bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Critics have accused the group of using the budget crisis to push for corporate tax cuts.

We are joined by Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author of the new report, “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks.”

End the war on terror and save billions: here.

By Christina Wilkie and Ryan Grim in the USA:

CEO Council Demands Cuts To Poor, Elderly While Reaping Billions In Government Contracts, Tax Breaks

11/25/2012 10:31 am EST

WASHINGTON — The corporate CEOs who have made a high-profile foray into deficit negotiations have themselves been substantially responsible for the size of the deficit they now want closed.

The companies represented by executives working with the Campaign To Fix The Debt have received trillions in federal war contracts, subsidies and bailouts, as well as specialized tax breaks and loopholes that virtually eliminate the companies’ tax bills.

The CEOs are part of a campaign run by the Peter Peterson-backed Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, which plans to spend at least $30 million pushing for a deficit reduction deal in the lame-duck session and beyond.

During the past few days, CEOs belonging to what the campaign calls its CEO Fiscal Leadership Council — most visibly, Goldman Sachs‘ Lloyd Blankfein and Honeywell‘s David Cote — have barnstormed the media, making the case that the only way to cut the deficit is to severely scale back social safety-net programs — Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — which would disproportionately impact the poor and the elderly.

As part of their push, they are advocating a “territorial tax system” that would exempt their companies’ foreign profits from taxation, netting them about $134 billion in tax savings, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies titled “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks” — money that could help pay off the federal budget deficit.

Yet the CEOs are not offering to forgo federal money or pay a higher tax rate, on their personal income or corporate profits. Instead, council recommendations include cutting “entitlement” programs, as well as what they call “low-priority spending.”

Many of the companies recommending austerity would be out of business without the heavy federal support they get, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, which both received billions in direct bailout cash, plus billions more indirectly through AIG and other companies taxpayers rescued.

Just three of the companies — GE, Boeing and Honeywell — were handed nearly $28 billion last year in federal contracts alone. A spokesman for Campaign To Fix The Debt did not respond to an email from The Huffington Post over the weekend.

Inequality and Budget Deficits: Why is Only the Latter an Emergency? Here.

Related articles

• Leadership CEOs: Help Us, Not Poor (drudge.com)
• Lobbyists Feign Budget ‘Fix’: Trojan Horse Filled with Corporate Tax Breaks (commondreams.org)
• Ten filthy rich, tax-dodging hypocrites (salon.com)
• Out Of Pocket!!!! Goldman Sachs CEO Says ‘Normal’ Folks Need To Raise Their Retirement Age (bossip.com)

JPMorgan bank sued for fraud

This video from the USA is called Madoff Trustee Sues JPMorgan, Claims Bank Aided Fraud.

From the BBC:

2 October 2012 Last updated at 09:40 GMT

JPMorgan sued over Bear Stearns mortgage securities

Attorney General wants JPMorgan to pay damages

The New York Attorney General has sued JP Morgan Chase for allegedly defrauding investors who lost more than $20bn (£12bn) on mortgage-backed securities sold by Bear Stearns.

JP Morgan bought the investment bank Bear Stearns in March 2008. …

This is the first action to come out of a working group created by US President Barack Obama looking into the causes of the 2008 financial crash. …

The BBC’s business editor Robert Peston said there were some “jaw-dropping elements” exposed in the suit.

He said it disclosed “a manic and frenzied culture of procuring and packaging as many mortgages as humanly possible, to maintain the bonds spewing from the investment bank, to generate as much short-term profit as humanly possible”.

“All this is a bit like the fifth instalment in a series of horror films, with each succeeding production gorier than the preceding one,” adds our editor.

One should hope that at least one of JP Morgan’s overpaid advisers, Tony Blair, will be sued soon as well.

Schneiderman Files Suit Against JP Morgan Chase for “Multiple Fraudulent and Deceptive Acts”: here.

New York attorney general sues JPMorgan for mortgage fraud: here.

Did JPMorgan Chase Really Take A “Ten Billion Dollar Hit” For Uncle Sam? Here.

JPMorgan Chase’s Tactics to Squeeze Student Loans Debtors: here.

Related articles

• London Whale’s Boss Martin-Artajo Sued by JPMorgan – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• JPMorgan sued over mortgage bonds (bbc.co.uk)
• JPMorgan Hit With Fraud Lawsuit Over Bear Stearns Securities (dailyfinance.com)
• Ghost Of Bear Stearns Haunts JPMorgan: N.Y. Hits Bank With Fraud Accusation (forbes.com)
• JPMorgan sued by New York Attorney General over mortgage-backed securities (blacklistednews.com)
• The $43 trillion bankster lawsuit and the mysterious murder of two NY toddlers (hangthebankers.com)
• New Mortgage Task Force Charges JPMorgan With “Systemic Fraud” (pbs.org)
• Chris Whalen: ‘Jamie Dimon Not So Brilliant After All’ (dailybail.com)

Tony Blair defends fraudulent bankers

The New Statesman in Britain today brought to my attention an article in the Conservative British Daily Telegraph:

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Tony Blair: hanging bankers won’t help

Public anger over the financial crisis is wrong and must not lead Britain to “hang bankers at the end of the street,” Tony Blair says today.

In the literal sense, I can agree, not with the first part, but with the second part of this sentence by war criminal and money grabber Tony Blair. As I oppose the death penalty (contrary to Blair). Fraudulent banking fat cats who ruin the lives of many people should have fair trials and, if found guilty, be jailed and/or fined. The same is true for war criminals like Tony Blair.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the former prime minister launches a defence of the free market and liberal economic rules established by the Thatcher government.

The approach promoted by Baroness Thatcher’s government is not to blame for the recent financial and economic crisis, Mr Blair says, warning against taking vengeance on bankers and increasing State intervention in the private sector.

We must not start thinking that society will be better off “if we hang 20 bankers at the end of the street”, Mr Blair says.

Big international banks are still the focus of public and political attacks for what critics say was their role in causing the financial crisis.

Mr Blair cautions against letting that anger lead to regulations that could reverse Lady Thatcher’s work to reduce government involvement in free markets.

He says: “Don’t take 30 years of liberalisation, beginning under Mrs Thatcher, and say this is what caused the financial crisis.”

Senior figures from the main parties have suggested that the crisis and alleged wrongdoing of banks such as Barclays should lead to tougher controls on banks.

Mr Blair challenges those calls, and says: “We mustn’t go back to the State running everything.”

That remark may be seen as a warning to Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, to avoid advocating Left-wing interventionist policies.

Instead of seeking to change laws and regulations, Mr Blair says that politicians must examine cultural norms. “We must regain the basic values of what society is about,” he says. “We’re not against wealth, but we are in favour of social responsibility.”

Mr Blair’s intervention is likely to prove controversial because of his commercial interests since leaving Downing Street five years ago. He is an adviser to JP Morgan, a US investment bank;

JP Morgan is heavily involved in various fraud scandals

Zurich, a Swiss financial firm; and has clients, including several governments, which are said to deliver an annual income of about £20 million.

In the interview, Mr Blair indicates that he is looking for a way to re-enter British public life and discusses his ambitions for taking an international political job.

“I’d like to find a form of intervening in debates,” Mr Blair says, adding that his experiences since quitting as prime minister have given him valuable insights.

Mr Blair will speak in a debate about the role of religion today.

Blair’s official religion used to be the Church of England, which condemned Blair’s Iraq war. Then he converted to the Roman Catholic Church, which opposed the Iraq war as well. Blair’s real religion is the worship of money and war.

Tony Blair: Labour government was partly responsible for financial crisis: here.

Ex-chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, Sean Fitzpatrick, arrested over financial irregularities. Details soon: here.

Barclays Reveals New Probe and More U.S. Libor Lawsuits: here.

Barclays boss Jerry del Missier has walked off with £8.75 million despite admitting illegally rigging Libor interest rates: here.

From the Stop the War Coalition in Britain:

London Tuesday 24 July: Protest when Tony Blair speaks at Central Hall Westminster

HOT NEWS: Tony Blair breaks cover
Stop the Tony Blair Comeback
Protest Tuesday 24 July 4pm-6pm
Central Hall Westminster
Storey’s Gate, Westminster
London SW1H 9NH
Nearest Tube Westminster or St James’s Park MAP here.
TONY BLAIR in conversation with:
Rowan Williams
Archibishop of Canterbury
Charles Moore
Former editor of The Daily Telegraph

The Tony Blair rehabilitation campaign, orchestrated by fellow war criminal Alistair Campbell, is now well under way.

But Blair and his acolytes are running scared of anti-war protests whenever he tries to show his face in public. So they keep secret the venue for his public appearances until a matter of hours before the event. No doubt also for fear of attempts to make a citizen’s arrest for war crimes. There is a £2,500 reward for anyone attempting an arrest. See www.arrestblair.org.

Stop the War is commited to making sure that Blair’s monumental war crimes are not forgiven or forgotten. We will call protests every time he appears in public, speaking as if hundreds of thousands of Iraqis did not die due to the illegal war which he took Britain into on a raft of lies.

Join the protest at Central Hall Westminster on Tuesday 24 July, 4pm-6pm. Please spread the word a widely as you can.

SEE ALSO: Never let them bury the truth about Tony Blair.

Human rights and anti-war activists confronted the latest attempt to “rehabilitate” Tony Blair today as the former PM appeared at a central London forum on Religion in Public Life: here.

Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Blog: “If any single person is responsible for Wall Street banks becoming too big to fail it’s Sandy Weill…. Weill created the business model that Wall Street uses to this day – unleashing traders to make big, risky bets with other people’s money that deliver gigantic bonuses when they turn out well and cost taxpayers dearly when they don’t. And Weill made a fortune – as did all the other executives and traders”: here.

The UK Conservative/Liberal Democrat government this week announced the terms of a review into the deepening London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) crisis: here.

JPMorgan Chase bank scandal

By Oliver Richards in the USA:

JPMorgan Chase investigated for manipulating California energy market

23 July 2012

The California Independent Systems Operator (CalISO), the nonprofit organization that coordinates the state’s electricity market, has alleged that JPMorgan Chase & Co. manipulated the state’s energy market, resulting in at least $73 million in improper payments—costs passed along to the state’s energy consumers.

The accusation emerged on July 2 in court filings by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees CalISO, as part of its investigation into the bank. Normally, ongoing FERC investigations are not disclosed to the public. The case was only revealed after the agency subpoenaed e-mails from JPMorgan relating to the inquiry.
The bank claimed that the e-mails were confidential on the basis of attorney-client privilege. However, under pressure, it released some of the e-mails in non-redacted form to the agency that belied their argument. The bank responded to the petition by arguing that FERC was engaged in an “abusive litigation tactic.”

FERC was granted expanded powers in 2005 in the aftermath of the manipulation of California’s energy market by Enron, which resulted in energy warnings and rolling blackouts throughout the state. The regulatory overhaul gave the agency the ability to fine companies as much as $1 million a day per violation. These fines, however, in no way discourage companies from gaming the system. JPMorgan’s investment arm, which includes its energy group, collects $14 billion annually; in comparison, six months’ worth of fines would amount to a paltry $180 million.

“The incentive remains for outfits like JPMorgan,” notes a July 18 article in the Los Angeles Times, “to stretch the rules to the breaking point—if they get caught, the cost is tolerable; if not, the returns are fabulous.”

There is growing evidence of collusion between the Bank of England and international regulators, including the US Federal Reserve, in allowing the rigging of the London interbank offered rate (Libor): here.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged UK Bank of England governor Mervyn King in 2008 to reform the London interbank offered rate (Libor) process to prevent ‘deliberate misreporting’: here.

Taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland admitted today that it will be fined for its part in the rate-rigging scandal which has already dragged Barclays through the mud: here.

JPMorgan banking scandals worse and worse

By Andre Damon and Barry Grey in the USA:

JPMorgan scandal: The tip of the iceberg

17 July 2012

JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US bank by assets, announced Friday that the trading loss from derivatives bets made by its Chief Investment Office (CIO) had reached $5.8 billion, nearly three times the amount the company had revealed in May. It added that the bad bets could result in an additional $1.7 billion in losses over the rest of the year.

In its second quarter filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the bank admitted that it had failed to report $459 million in losses from the trades in its first quarter report, released April 13. CEO Jamie Dimon and other top executives attempted to lay the blame on “certain individuals” who “may have been seeking to avoid showing the full amount of the losses being incurred in the portfolio during the first quarter”—an allusion to several traders in the London office of the bank’s CIO who have since been forced out of the firm.

Bloomberg News reported that this explanation seemed implausible to former JPMorgan executives it interviewed, who said the company had mechanisms in place to make sure traders could not simply hide their losses. In fact, JPMorgan’s report to the SEC on Friday indicates that the bank recorded a $718 million loss from the London trades on its internal accounts, but did not report the loss in its first quarter earnings statement.

In other words, JPMorgan deliberately falsified its first quarter report to the SEC in order to conceal its massive gambling losses. This is a crime—a violation of banking laws for which Dimon, as the CEO, is responsible. That Dimon was involved in a cover-up is underscored by the proof contained in Friday’s report to the SEC that he was already aware his bank had lost hundreds of millions if not billions when he told a conference call in April that reports of major losses by the bank’s CIO were “a tempest in a teapot.”

The trading loss debacle is only one of many scandals engulfing JPMorgan Chase.

* The bank is currently under investigation for helping to manipulate the London interbank lending rate (Libor), together with other major banks, in order to conceal financial weaknesses and boost profits from speculative bets on derivatives linked to Libor, the most important global benchmark for trillions of dollars in mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other financial products.

* The SEC and other regulators are investigating allegations by current and former JPMorgan financial advisers that the company encouraged them to sell their clients JPMorgan mutual funds when it was against the clients’ interests.

* The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has sued JPMorgan to force it to hand over emails related to alleged price-gouging in electrical power markets in California and the Midwest by one of the bank’s subsidiaries.

* JPMorgan, together other major banks and Visa and MasterCard, last week announced a proposal to settle allegations that they colluded to fix fees on credit card transactions, ripping off billions of dollars from retailers and customers and violating antitrust laws.

Dimon has been handsomely rewarded for his role in facilitating these various schemes. He received $23.1 million in compensation last year, up 11 percent from 2010. In this he joined the heads of other major banks, who received an average 12 percent pay increase in 2011.

Credit card companies Visa and Master Card as well as several banks announced July 13 that they would agree to pay a total of $6.6 billion in settlement to retailers, bringing an end to a bitter lawsuit first brought in 2005. If the proposed settlement is agreed to in court, lawyers involved in the case claim it will represent the largest antitrust settlement in history: here.

After Libor scandal, will US officials finally crack down? What will it take for real reform? Here.

Barclays has been sailing “close to the wind” too often, the boss of Britain’s central bank said today. Bank of England governor Mervyn King told MPs the bank mired in the rate-rigging scandal had appeared to have been in a “state of denial” over regulatory concerns about the way the bank operated: here.

JPMorgan scandal like Enron

This video from the USA is called Elbow From The Sky On JPMorgan – Trading Loss Surges.

From Bloomberg news agency in the USA:

How JPMorgan Is Like Enron

By Jonathan Weil

May 18, 2012 12:00 AM GMT+0200

Put this one in the category of the famous quote often credited to Mark Twain: “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

Last week when JPMorgan Chase & Co. warned investors about a $2 billion trading loss at its chief investment office, it also disclosed it had been using a faulty model to determine the unit’s so-called value at risk. For me at least, the story conjured up memories of a similar tale at Enron Corp. more than a decade ago, the details of which I’ll get to in a moment.

Initially, in its first-quarter earnings press release on April 13, JPMorgan said the average value-at-risk figure for its chief investment office was $67 million during the three months ended March 31. JPMorgan revised that to $129 million when it filed its quarterly report with regulators last week.

See also here.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess, The New York Times News Service: “Scores of federal regulators are stationed inside JPMorgan Chase’s Manhattan headquarters, but none of them were assigned to the powerful unit that recently disclosed a multibillion trading loss. The lapses have raised questions about who, if anyone, was policing the chief investment office and whether regulators were sufficiently independent. Instead of putting the JPMorgan unit under regular watch, the comptroller’s office and the Fed chose to examine it periodically”: here.

Is JPMorgan Paying for John Boehner‘s Personal Polling Operation? Questions Surround Shadowy Front “New Models USA”. Lee Fang, Republic Report: “We’d like to call your attention to a secretive nonprofit, ‘New Models U.S.A.’ The media has linked the group to a number of shady electioneering efforts in the past. In this day and age, not only can corporations spend unlimited amounts on elections, they can fully hide their identities using nonprofit groups that can operate as Super PACs or quasi-lobbying firms. New Models appears to exist for the express purpose of hiding political money”: here.

JPMorgan Chase and Credit Suisse will pay $416.9 million to settle charges by the Securities Exchange Commission that they lied to investors about the quality of mortgage-backed bonds: here.

At a Senate hearing ostensibly called to interrogate JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon about billions of dollars in speculative losses revealed last month, Dimon was given free rein to reiterate his opposition to any increase in bank regulation: here.

Why the Senate Won’t Touch Jamie Dimon: How JPMorgan Props Up US Debt. Ellen Brown, Truthout: “When Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Bank, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on June 13, he was wearing cufflinks bearing the presidential seal. ‘Was Dimon trying to send any particular message by wearing the presidential cufflinks?’ asked CNBC editor John Carney. ‘Was he … subtly hinting that he’s really the guy in charge?’” Here.

Related articles

• My Big Fat Overrated CEO: McKenna On Dimon On The Keiser Report (retheauditors.com)
• Arrest Warrant Issued for JPMorgan Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon | THE JEENYUS CORNER (jeenyuscorner.com)
• JPMorgan’s Trades Ensnared by Post-Enron Regulator Zeal – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• JPMorgan Chase Trying to Throw Its Traders Under the Bus for Fail Whale-Related Securities Fraud (news.firedoglake.com)

JPMorgan Chase scandal in the USA

Maybe JPMorgan Chase, the biggest United States bank, have become involved too much with crooks like Bernie Madoff and Tony Blair …

This video is about the links between the Gaddafi family in Libya and Tony Blair and the royal family in Britain.

Tony Blair used visits to Libya [then still under Colonel Gaddafi] after he left office to lobby for business for the American investment bank JP Morgan, The Daily Telegraph has been told: here. See also here.

Stung by a huge trading loss, JPMorgan Chase will replace three top traders starting Monday, including one of the top women on Wall Street, in an effort to stem the ire that the bank faces from regulators and investors: here.

The economic and political fallout from JPMorgan Chase’s sudden announcement last Thursday night that it lost more than $2 billion from speculative bets on credit derivatives continued to grow on Monday. The biggest US bank announced the forced retirement of Ina Drew, who headed up the bank’s London-based Chief Investment Office, which placed huge bets on the creditworthiness of a collection of US corporations. Other top executives and traders are expected to be sacked or demoted: here.

JPMorgan Chase Chairman Jamie Dimon, the Whale Man and Glass-Steagall: here.

What Did JPMorgan Execs Know and When Did They Know It? Here.

Elizabeth Warren Says JPMorgan Trading Debacle Shows “We Need to Go Back to Boring Banking”. Pat Garofalo, ThinkProgress: “Massachusetts Democratic senate candidate Elizabeth Warren reacted to the news of JPMorgan’s $2 billion trading debacle by calling for the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, to step down from his position as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s board. Today, Warren also said that the episode makes the case for a return to ‘boring banking’ – separating investment banking from traditional commercial banking – which was the status quo before the deregulatory zeal of the late 1990s”: here.

US bank profits rose sharply during the first quarter of 2012, according to figures compiled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: here.

USA: Top CEO Pay Equals 3,489 Years of Work for the Typical Worker: here.

Tony Blair joins JP Morgan as $1m-a-year part-timer

In this video from the USA, Summer of Resistance & CodePink Greet Bush Poodle Tony Blair in Washington, D.C.

From British daily The Guardian:

Blair joins JP Morgan as $1m-a-year adviser

* Graeme Wearden

The US investment bank JP Morgan has signed up Tony Blair as a part-time senior adviser, on a salary said to exceed $1m (£500,000) a year.

The former prime minister would provide “strategic advice and insight on global political issues and emerging trends”, the company said last night.

Blair, whose contacts book could prove very valuable in the private sector, has indicated this could be just the first in a series of private-sector roles. “I have always been interested in commerce and the impact of globalisation. Nowadays, the intersection between politics and the economy in different parts of the world, including the emerging markets, is very strong,” he told the Financial Times.

Since leaving Downing Street last June, Blair has acted as an envoy to the Middle East. He has also joined the lucrative international speaking circuit – reportedly receiving $500,000 for one speech in China.

He also has a multi-million pound deal with Random House to publish his memoirs.

JP Morgan has been damaged by the US sub-prime crisis – caused by mortgages being given to people who could not pay them off. Blair himself has to service a large mortgage on a town house in Connaught Square in London, bought for £3.65m in 2004.

In moving from No 10 to the financial sector, Blair is following the example of his predecessor, John Major, who joined the private equity firm Carlyle Group in 1998.

JP Morgan is involved in the occupation of Iraq. Maybe they think faux ‘peace envoy’ Blair can help them in that bloody business.

Talking about Blair’s New Labour cronies: Peter Hain failed to declare £100,000 of donations.

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