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JP Morgan Chase Sets Profit Record as CEO Complains About Regulation
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Friday 12 October 2012
To hear JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon tell it, regulations are killing his bank.
P Morgan Chase, the largest American bank, announced record third-quarter profits today of $5.7 billion. Those billions were made even as the bank is still working out the multi-billion dollar “London Whale” trading debacle.
But to hear JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon tell it, regulations are killing his bank. During an appearance in Washington this week, Dimon opined that new regulations — both on the international level and due to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law here in the U.S. — will cost JP Morgan $1 billion per year (compared to quarterly profits of nearly $6 billion). As McClatchy’s Kevin Hall reported:
Dimon said he understands the need for regulation in the wake of crisis.
“But I think government should think twice before it punishes businesses every time something goes wrong,” he said, looking past the scale of what went wrong in the run up to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Dimon repeated that he supports much of what’s in the Dodd-Frank Act, the sweeping 2010 revamp of financial regulation that was a response to the crisis, but he took issue with some of its most important provisions. One is regulatory requirements to keep more capital on hand to respond to future crises, which he argued crimps lending and investment.
JP Morgan Chase and Dimon are certainly not alone. The nation’s six biggest banks are enjoying their highest profits since 2006, but that hasn’t stopped bankers from moaning about new regulations, even as the country still recovers from a financial crisis that was largely the result of Wall Street malfeasance.
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ABOUT Pat Garofalo
Pat Garofalo is Economic Policy Editor for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Pat’s work has also appeared in The Nation, U.S. News & World Report, The Guardian, the Washington Examiner, and In These Times. He has been a guest on MSNBC and Al-Jazeera television, as well as many radio shows. Pat graduated from Brandeis University, where he was the editor-in-chief of The Brandeis Hoot, Brandeis’ community newspaper, and worked for the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life.
6 comments on "JP Morgan Chase Sets Profit Record as CEO Complains About Regulation"
WA
October 13, 2012 7:58pm
Woetopoe's comment was interesting, yes, Obama is a good man, and I think he grants the veracity of my remarks about the Los Angeles-Evil Entertainment Empire ruling America! (ask him!) This was a fairly mild article, but you on the radical left are also conditioned by your TV-culture, blaming Dimon and Wall Street for ruling America. Thus, so far (!), you fit in well with the Los Angeles scheme of things, your role is to throw suspicion off L.A. and you perform beautifully. But, what you might consider is that you're not faced with an oligarchy of merely wealthy, greedy men, you're faced with monumental evil, the evil of the true oligarchy of America, the several hundred thousand people (who each have sold their soul for their career) in show-business. In league with Satan, (let's suppose there is such a personage, THEY think there is...) these highly educated, intelligent but basically foul people massage your brain while they pour in the pro-L.A. propaganda as if by a funnel stuck in your forehead! This is your brain on TV! Figure that the whole population of America is watching television, and nodding in assent to each foul suggestion, and you see what you're really fighting in your struggles for social justice or environmental sanity! How do you step outside the culture to see it? Do as I do, refuse to watch any motion imagery, that they hate, and I know those show-business people hate me for it! Drop the characitures of the politicians being bought, they represent just what the insane population wants of them, thinking big corporations are a great idea, defense contractors, they think, should be increased, etc., just as TV has designed their mind for them. Face the horrible truth, this nation is functionally insane, led by evil schemers who'll stop at nothing to preserve their own power.
October 14, 2012 12:58pm
Jack, I "don't" watch "any" mainstream TV. My wife and I read (what a novel idea) a vast variety of both historical and political information in both books (preferred) and the internet. The nation is "functionally insane" as you so adroitly put. How do you like your toast?
October 13, 2012 5:56pm
The new I ME, MINE and I want it all, not just 50%, or most of it, but I WANT ALL of it.
October 13, 2012 5:54pm
Yes, Jamie Dimon's bank made 6 billion in profits, but think of how much in profits they could have made without any regulation, at least 12 billion, or perhaps 0 profits. The bankers insatiable greed is just astounding. Of course it they made 0 profits, then they would be looking for another bailout.
October 13, 2012 3:07pm
Dimon shows a clear lack of conscience in balance to his desire for more, more profit, more bonus, more everything. Problem is those in his position can't be touched because of the scale and of what they oversee, giving them the power to call most of the shots. Instead of perpetuating this rotten to the core system they should have been allowed to fail; we'd be out from under by now with a new monetary system and the national debt all but paid off with a publicly owned fiat currency and either a full reserve or heavily regulated banking sector.
October 13, 2012 11:36am
Financial corporations are "not" averse to regulations. They simply want to be the ones that create, oversee and enact any "punishments" should they occur. Humankind has a rather abysmal record in the annals of history when certain elements attempt to "police themselves." Man is now, and has been for millenia,
an inherently corrupt species. Particularly when wealth and power are concerned.
Bush #2 opened the flood gates for the type of malfeasance we've grown accustomed to hearing about. Obama said upon arrival at his new digs in '08 that "we're committed to looking forward...not back." He was sincere in that pledge and the continued record profits despite the overwhelming evidence of criminal activity is about all the proof you need. Dimon and Co. no doubt believe even brighter days lie ahead under a Romney administration. Thanks Mr.President for being such an unflagging and stalwart champion of the working class. You're dedication to justice is truly overwhelming. When can we expect Dimon's announcement as new treasury secretary?