Posted on 10/14/2008 9:31:52 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The head of one of America's bigger banks blamed sluggish decision-making in Washington for prolonging the banking crisis
Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, bitterly criticised Washington lawmakers yesterday, deriding their sluggish decision-making and describing the political system as suffering from “institutional sclerosis [...] unable to make a decision to make this country healthy”.
His attack came hours after his bank had been forced to sell a stake in itself to the US Government, following the announcement of President Bush's plans to partially nationalise America's biggest financial institutions.
It also comes after Wall Street watched with disbelief as lawmakers argued over and sought to block the $700billion (£401billion) rescue package designed to crack America's frozen credit markets.
Speaking at the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mr Dimon also criticised the notion that all business people were corrupt and overpaid - accusations that have been levelled at Wall Street since the implosion of the US banking system forced Washington to use taxpayers' money to bail out financial institutions.
Many on Capitol Hill have expressed anger at having to use taxpayers' money to bail out bankers who have received huge salaries and bonuses in the past.
Mr Dimon said: “There is a belief that somehow every business person is corrupt. Some of these companies are more charitable and more honest than the average congressman.”
However, he conceded: “A lot of people made a lot of money who did not deserve it. That is a fact.”
Mr Dimon, who has been tipped as a favoured candidate to be the new US Treasury Secretary in the event that Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential hopeful, wins next month's election, also attacked other Wall Street executives.
Speaking at the business school from which he graduated 20 years ago, he accused some of his
(Excerpt) Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk ...
These comments brought to you by Barack Obama’s future Sec of US Treasury.
Hey, it’s Obama’s Treasury Secretary. He’d be doing a better job, natch.
Not to worry, Chief - we’re gonna nationalize the banks. Soon, America’s economy will be just as strong as that of... oh... say, Chavez’ Venezuela.
Ewwwww...I thought about buying JPM stock. I'm glad I chose something else now knowing that the CEO is an Obama-phile.
The model to use for the bailout/workout -- which worked just fine, thank you, took about 3 years -- is the Swedish model in their banking crisis of 1992-1993. As regards goobermint taking preferred shares, it was effectively the same as we are now doing.
The difference is that the Swedes left the solvent banks alone, and focused instead upon the shaky ones that had a good chance of survival, given a bit of help. The hopelessly insolvent banks, well, the Swedes told them bluntly to merge, be bought out, or die.
The preferred shares have long since been bought back by the private sector, and today Swedish banking (as indicated in a poll just last month of ALL the nations' banking sectors) is regarded as second soundest in the world.
Of course, given the dildoes and dildettes in the US Regress, I never supposed we'd get as good a plan as the Swedes used.
Sigh....
The Senate, "the most deliberate body in the world" rubber stamped this atrocious bailout. Well, almost. The Senate did manage to add a little pork for themselves as another layer crap sandwich for us.
At tonight's meet the candidates forum in Chicago, the loudest applause was when an audience member asked a Congressional candidate how he would vote on the bailout.
No. Twice. Was the answer.
The nation is thinking: broom.
OLA
Credible...credible.
I’ll keep all of this in mind in the future. /s
JPM stock did nothing when we had 1000 pt run. More sellers than buyers.
Dubya needs to go down there and put a boot in this guy’s ass.
...interesting. Our Government is investing in the banks without controlling them. Britain’s government will take some control of its private banks.
Let’s ask Robert Rubin, vice chairman of Citigroup, what he thinks...as soon as he gets back on the company jet from fly-fishing in Montana.
It had a big run up to that point after the government gave them wamu while most other financials were tanking. Problem is, right after that, Mr. Dimon said he was going to increase JPM stock float by several billion to fund all the costs and build up its capital. Also a bunch of other euro banks started failing the next week.
What’s probably got his shorts scrunched up is the government seizing partial ownership of his company this week. Financials that are partially or fully nationilized tend to have flatter earnings potential because the government will monitor their business dealings more and makes it more challenging to take risks to boost business.
But one thing he is right about is the government taking too long to act. The simple act of raising the FDIC insurance limits which should of been instituted over a month ago would of calmed nervous depositors and Wamu & Wachovia would still be alive today. Not to the mention all the jobs to be lost by these rushed mergers and the billions in stockholder value wiped out. Headlines about largest bank failures in history tend to cause problems with confidence in just about EVERYTHING.
That is why honest, prudent, and intelligent people should be rewarded and promoted in business.
Perhaps Harvard could require a six-month internship in Atlantic City, so that their graduates might recognize such traits.
That made me chuckle.
Dimon is one of the few heros in this mess and I would be very surprised if he was a democrat.
JPM ditched all it’s subprime crap well in advance of the credit crises. JPM stock has done the best of any large bank in the US and may have bested every bank in performance in the entire world large or small (although I doubt that, I can’t think of any that have done better).
He is notorious for being frugal and his compensation package seems relatively small compared to his peers.
Except Venezuela has it's own source of revenue. It owns all oil, oil wells, and many other businesses in the country.
Our government (dem congress) will not allow most drilling and refining operations on US soil.
It is when the foxes scream about how long it is taking us to pull their leg from the trap they leaped in, that I want to leave them in the trap to starve to death.
The greedy pigmen like Dimon and the brokers in Morgan ARE A BIG CAUSE of this credit crisis.
Yes Jaime, we get to pay for your obscene bonus because we don’t want to go down with you, but you are very near to pissing us off enough to throwing you over even if we go down ourselves.
Greedy bastards. May they all burn in hell.
It took control of Fan/Fred. I know they're not banks. Still, they are financial institutions.
The big question is, what will they do with them? Supposedly, the plan is to carry on as usual for two years, then sell 10%/yr.
We shall see. Especially if Osama gets together with Bawney Fwank.
yitbos
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