Chupacabra Report

News that Gets My Goat..

CSPAN has been running Jamie Dimon’s appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, where he’s been asked to explain their recent $2 billion trading loss. I heard reporters on Marketplace saying that the Committee has gone easy on him. He’s popular on The Hill and at the White House.


As one cartoonist explained, Morgan had credit default insurance on these trades, but since the loss was covered, there was no loss to cover and they were out $2 billion. Who figured?

Dimon, like most on Wall Street opposed strict regulation of derivatives trading by FDIC insured banks, rules that might have prevented trading such as the $2 billion hickey J.P. they took this year. Marketplace later noted that sixteen of twenty-two Committee members have received campaign contributions from J.P. Morgan Chase.