"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks! If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!" - Nein, Nein, Nein Herman Cain, The 1% Owns Congress.Rich Powerful Corporations control the US Government. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (literally pronounced Diamond) went to Congress to have Tea Party Super-Hero Senator Jim DeMint, Bank Executive... I mean "Senator" Charles Schumer and the other members of the sycophant Senate Banking Committee engage in a display of bootlicking not seen since Republican lickspittle Joe Barton apologized to BP Chairman Tony Heyward for Gulf of Mexico waters and sealife dirtying up his companies oil.
In the face of this evil, we the 99% are divided. The Plutocracy has succeeded in dividing Us. Now, some of Us are more wrong than others, (If you believe the 1977 CRA was responsible for the Housing Crash 30 years later or if Herman Cain's denounciation of the Poor or Andrew Deadbart's declaration to "go after the Teachers and the Union organizers", resonated with you for instance) but the awful truth is money bought and owns both "sides" of Washington DC.
In Dimon's prepared opening statement, he claims JP Morgan Chase holds,
'[A]pproximately $1.1 trillion in deposits and $700 billion in loans. CIO, along with our Treasury unit, invests excess cash in a portfolio that includes Treasuries, agencies, mortgage-backed securities, high quality securities, corporate debt and other domestic and overseas assets. This portfolio serves as an important source of liquidity and maintains an average rating of AA+. The bulk of CIO’s responsibility is to manage an approximately $350 billion portfolio in a conservative manner."You see? JP Morgan Chase only lost $3 billion out of a $350 billion dollar portfolio! What a crock of shit. As with just before the 2007 Crash, Dimon like all the Banking Criminals claims his $400 billion in liquidity has an average rating of AA+. Dimon is willfully hiding the nature of JP Morgan Chase's holdings.
The entire Wall Street/Big Banking Super-structure is built on a foundation of naked credit default swaps, bad derivatives and toxic junk. The Giant Vampire Squids were assured their profligate criminal malfeseance and outright multi-billion dollar
It's not that we haven't learned from our mistakes. Senator Jeff Merkeley (D-Oregon) pointed out,
"In 2008, 2009, your company benefited from half-a-trillion dollars in low-cost federal loans, $25 billion in TARP loans, of TARP funds, untold billions indirectly through the bailout of AIG that helped address your massive exposure in repurchase agreements and derivatives."But, Dimon smugly responded, "I think you were misinformed. [W]e were asked to take TARP by Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke." And why not because the Giant Vampire Squids were going to treat the Trillions in Guarantees from the Federal Reserve as the Mob treated the Restaurant in Goodfellas:
Senator Jim DeMint decided to lovingly praise Dimon's profitability while complaining about the United States expenses,
"We can hardly sit in judgment of your losing $2 billion. We lose twice that every day here in Washington and plan to continue to do that every day."Yeah Jim, "We" are losing billions every day because of the fucking Trillon Dollar War Budget you vote for every year, while you've voted to keep millions in Federal Farm subsidies and for the costs associated with paying your exorbinant salary, free government funded healthcare and the massive expenses for your giant tax-payer funded DC and South Carolina Staffs and Office Spaces.
Of course, DeMint being a prime Tea Party asshole wasn't finished as he implied Over-Regulation was the actual cause of JP Morgan Chase's $3 Billion dollar plus loss and asked pretty please if Jamie would tell him what to write down for future regulation,
"Every time something goes amiss, we want to add a regulation, and we’ve surrounded the banking industry with so many regulations. It will, I think, advise us, help us and—as we look forward, and hopefully it will contribute to best practice scenario in the industry, and I appreciate your emphasis on a continuous quality improvement."So of course, DeMint and Charles Schumer aren't going to sit in judgement of their Owners. 16 of the 22 members have received numerous campaign contributions from JP Morgan Chase. A former Senator on the committee, Mel Martinez, R-Fl., is also now the JP Morgan exec in charge of Florida, Central America, and the Caribbean. Martinez was elected to the Senate in 2004 and went to the bank in 2010. And there has been a revolving door between staffers and aides for the Senate Banking Committee and JP Morgan Chase.
The Fault lies not with Us, but with our Political Stars...
