Climate Of Fraud, Negligence, Incompetence & JP Morgan

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

I was thinking about titling this post “Fire Jamie Dimon.”  I changed my mind because this article is much, much bigger than Mr. Dimon.  This is really an article about the current climate of fraud, negligence and incompetence that is accepted as the new normal.  Dimon and JP Morgan Chase are just the larger-than-life faces of the profound problems that are not getting fixed.  JP Morgan is the nation’s biggest bank; so, for the sake of simplicity, I just want to use JP Morgan and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, to illustrate what is really stopping the economy from getting better.  This is the 8,000 pound elephant in the room that nobody wants to even acknowledge.

Look no further than this past year.  There are big examples that come to mind that should have brought some criminal charges against bank personnel, or at least been grounds to fire Mr. Dimon.  Most recently, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse paid nearly $417 million (combined) to settle civil fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  Reuters recently reported, “JPMorgan will pay $296.9 million, while Credit Suisse will pay $120 million in a separate case, with the money going to harmed investors, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said.  Both settlements addressed alleged negligence or other wrongdoing in the packaging and sale of risky residential mortgage-backed securities . . .” Of course, both JP Morgan and Credit Suisse didn’t admit guilt, and no individuals were charged criminally.  The Reuters story went on to say, “On a conference call with reporters, Robert Khuzami (SEC enforcement chief) said it is hard to bring cases against individuals over ‘structured’ financial transactions because different people work on different aspects, making it hard to pin blame.” (Click here for the complete Reuters story.)  It was the same story in 2011.  According to Reuters, “JPMorgan had in June 2011 agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle a separate SEC fraud case over its sale of mortgage securities to investors, also without admitting wrongdoing.”  Anybody see a pattern here for JP Morgan or government prosecutors?

Hey, you know what else makes it “hard to pin blame”?  Lots of cash donated to both parties by banks like JP Morgan.  So much cash that the boss will come down hard on prosecutors who bring charges.  One thousand financial elites were successfully prosecuted in the wake of the S&L crisis 20 years ago.  It was 70 times smaller than the 2008 financial meltdown that was caused by greedy bankers.  The “$296.9 million”paid by JP Morgan didn’t even come with an apology, let alone criminal charges for individuals.  This certainly didn’t fix anything, but it did let bankers and Jamie Dimon off the hook–once again.  Is this the business plan that Jamie Dimon condones?

continue at USA Watchdog:

http://usawatchdog.com/climate-of-fraud-negligence-incompetence-and-jp-morgan/