That Wall Street Journal is even more critical of the administration’s heavy-handed tactics. They characterized the effort to keep track of the government’s probes of the bank as tantamount to having a full time job. In conjunction with a tally taken by the New York Times, the Journal reveals there are investigations being conducted by “at least seven federal agencies” along with “seven investigations in the Justice Department alone, plus inquiries at other agencies.” The reason for the ramped up effort? The Journal notes that JPMorgan did not need a taxpayer bailout when the 2008 financial crisis hit, and such independence is anathema to an Obama administration that “prefers dependent banks that quietly accept their role as money pots to be raided when politics demands. Mr. Dimon keeps deviating from the Obama script.” Thus the long knives were out, and Dimon and JPMorgan gave the government the political ammo it needed when the so-called ”London Whale” trading scandal broke, costing the bank $6 billion, along with a hit to its reputation as a sound money manager. Despite incurring no public losses, conducting an investigation of its own and firing senior managers and traders for the debacle — while making record profits in 2012, despite the loss — JPMorgan became the poster child for Democrats seeking payback. They were furious that the loss exposed the inadequacies of the Dodd-Frank banking bill that was supposed to prevent large financial crises from reoccurring. The Journal emphasizes three blinding hypocrisies associated with the efforts of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats to punish JPMorgan. They wonder how government regulators who “all but live at the bank” missed the London Whale scandal until JPMorgan notified them of it; how the government can portray Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as “unwitting investors in mortgage securities” when their own unconscionable gambling on mortgages triggered the aforementioned $188 billion taxpayer bailout; and why Dimon, who helped end the mortgage crisis is being vilified, while Jack Lew, who “helped to oversee a disaster at Citigroup that would require serial taxpayer bailouts from Treasury and the Federal Reserve,” has become the Treasury Secretary. Hypocrisy aside, there is no doubt that most Americans have little sympathy for anyone in a banking industry that has wholly emerged from the financial crisis, even as Main Street Americans continue to suffer. Yet it is useful to remember that the genesis of that crisis was a federal government determined to turn owning a home into a de facto affirmative action program in which banks were threatened with reprisals if they did not approve a certain percentage of questionable loans. That is not to say bankers are innocent, only that they are forced to operate within the parameters, no matter how reckless and tainted by corruption, government sets for them. It is easy to miss the real story behind the effort to make JPMorgan and Dimon villains, much like the IRS effectively made villains of the Tea Party, or the State Department made a villain of jailed filmmaker Mark Basseley Youssef who was framed by Obama and Hillary Clinton for Benghazi. The real story is that no one is safe from political retribution in the age of Obama, not even the president’s former “favorite banker,” who is now learning what happens to those who dare to criticize this administration. “Washington is looting J.P. Morgan, and may yet string up Jamie Dimon, as a lesson in what will happen to any banker who dares to disagree with his Washington bosses,” the Wall Street Journal contends. Thus, JPMorgan is on the hook for $13 billion, before the criminal lawsuits “begin to fly.” And while some Americans may gain a misguided sense of satisfaction in seeing a “fat cat” taken down, they would be wise to remember that there is no fatter cat than the federal government. They would be even wiser to note that the JPMorgan episode is another reminder that not even mega-wealthy former friends are safe from the Obama administration’s retribution.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 15:24:39 +0000