WikiLeaks and bankers

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange vowed to reveal confidential account details of rich and famous individuals today after taking delivery of a new dossier from a former Swiss banker: here. And here.

USA: JPMorgan Chase’s profit report for 2010, released Friday, has become the occasion for a celebration by the American plutocracy of the return of the good old days before the Wall Street crash of 2008. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, summed up the general mood of the financial elite when he declared the bank’s record profits to be evidence of a “broad-based economic recovery,” adding, “I think the future is extremely bright”: here.

Richard D. Wolff: “One aspect of ‘American exceptionalism’ was always economic. US workers, so the story went, enjoyed a rising level of real wages that afforded their families a rising standard of living. Ever harder work paid off in rising consumption. The rich got richer faster than the rest, but almost no one got poorer. Nearly all citizens felt ‘middle class.’ A profitable US capitalism kept running ahead of labor supply. So it kept raising wages to attract waves of immigration and to retain employees across the 19th century until the 1970s”: here.

Britain: Union leader Bob Crow blasted David Cameron today for his impotence over the controversial issue of banker’s bonuses: here.

British bankers gave over 50% of Tory election year money: here.

Left economists called for nationalisation of the banking sector today after the Bank of England’s deputy governor conceded that taxpayers should not have had to pay for the 2008 collapse: here.

The public-sector PCS union hit out at the Treasury today for failing to collect millions of pounds from Britain’s richest people under the 50p tax rate: here.

WikiLeaks and music: here.