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To be precise, JPMorgan receives a government subsidy worth about $14 billion a year, according to research published by the International Monetary Fund and our own analysis of bank balance sheets. The money helps the bank pay big salaries and bonuses. More important, it distorts markets, fueling crises such as the recent subprime-lending disaster and the sovereign-debt debacle that is now threatening to destroy the euro and sink the global economy.
In recent decades, governments and central banks around the world have developed a consistent pattern of behavior when trouble strikes banks that are large or interconnected enough to threaten the broader economy: They step in to ensure that all the bank's creditors, not just depositors, are paid in full. Although typically necessary to prevent permanent economic damage, such bailouts encourage a reckless confidence among creditors. They assume the government will always make them whole, so they become willing to lend at lower rates, particularly to systemically important banks.
To estimate the dollar value of the subsidy in the U.S., we multiplied it by the debt and deposits of 18 of the country's largest banks, including JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup. The result: about $76 billion a year. The number is roughly equivalent to the banks' total profits over the past 12 months, or more than the federal government spends per year on education.
The solution: Minimize the subsidy. Require banks' shareholders to put up enough capital to make bailouts highly unlikely (we advocate 20% of assets). Allow some creditors to take losses when a bank gets into trouble, so they won't assume they're safe (an approach regulators in the U.S. and Europe are considering). Cut off subsidies to traders, such as the folks in London who lost billions for JPMorgan, by forbidding speculative trading activity at banks (the goal of the Volcker rule in the U.S. and financial ring-fencing in the U.K.).
Why hasn't this been done? One partial explanation can be found in the amount of money banks put into election campaigns and into lobbying, which has recently included efforts to water down the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation. According to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, the broad financial industry -- a category that includes real estate companies and insurers -- has spent $285 million on political giving in the 2012 election cycle. That's much more than any other industry spends.
Lawmakers and regulators need to recognize just how costly business as usual will be. When Dimon pushes back against capital requirements or the Volcker rule, it's worth remembering that he's pushing for a form of corporate welfare that, left unchecked, could lead to a crisis too big for the government to contain.
Originally posted by llmacgregor
It is ironic how the citizens who protest against this kind of stuff are looked at, by some, as the lowlifes living on handouts, and are more of a problem then Dimon and people alike.
Blame it on the hippies. Never fails.
I bet Dimon is a conservative too. Figures.
Originally posted by llmacgregor
I bet Dimon is a conservative too. Figures.
Originally posted by MyMindIsMyOwn
Originally posted by llmacgregor
I bet Dimon is a conservative too. Figures.
Believe it or not, Dimon is a democrat. Apparently however, not one that believes in walking the party line. If you watched any of Dimon's testimony last week before the Senate Banking Committee and did a little research into just who Dimon was speaking with, you would find that Dimon personally and JPM as a corporation contributed to the majority of the senator's campaigns who sit on that committee regardless of their party affiliation. Disgusting isn't it?? Couple that with the flash of his presidential seal cuff links then it becomes apparent that this was clearly a case of the tail (Dimon) wagging the dog (the committee). Other things to take into consideration as far as Dimon goes, he sits on the board of the NY Fed Reserve Bank and the fact he was part of Obama's response team during the financial melt down in progress when Obama took office and had unfettered 24 hour access to Tim Geithner during that time to get the whole mess under control as quickly as possible. So yeah, he's not just the CEO of one of the biggest banks in the world.. he's got the kind of connections that make it possible for him to never fail.
To the point of the OP though, while I can say that I am utterly and completely disgusted by this important piece of info you've uncovered, with the way things are in this country today, I cannot say that I am not entirely surprised by it. The fact that I'm not surprised by this kind of thing anymore is almost as disturbing to me as the fact that it happens in the first place.