Senators put government regulators, not J.P. Morgan, on the hot seat

“JPMorgan Chase has spent upward of $20 million on lobbying and campaign contributions in the past three years. On Tuesday, the bank received a healthy dividend on that investment,” the Washington Post is reporting.

“Its chairman, Jamie Dimon, has admitted that the firm was “sloppy” and “stupid” in making trading bets that lost $2 billion. But Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee wouldn’t hear of it; they preferred to blame government.

“As the panel held the first hearing on the JPMorgan losses, Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the committee’s ranking Republican, glowered at federal regulators and charged that they “didn’t know what was really going on.”

“When did you first learn about these trades?” Shelby inquired.

“Gary Gensler, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, admitted that he had learned about them from press reports.

“Press reports!” Shelby echoed, with mock surprise. He smiled. “Were you in the dark?”

The rest of the article is here.

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2 Responses

  1. Classic statement from the same group of people that blame the 2008 financial crises on government requirements for banks to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act

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