Congress grilled Jamie Dimon, CEO of Chase Bank about losing $2 billion in hedging losses. The money was Chase money, not taxpayer money. Nor does it endanger long-term shareholder equity, since Chase will have a good quarterly profit performance. It was painfully obvious that the politicians doing the questioning were totally clueless about hedge funds and how they work. Nor was there any discussion about the billions Chase made by hedging. This, like so many congressional hearings, was a pure circus with the politicians playing the clowns.
Only Jim DeMintt, the fiscal conservative made any sense when he said, “I don’t see why we are grilling Mr. Dimon when we lose $4 billion a day. But they chose to do nothing about our problems while attempting to use the Chase problem to grow government by adding regulations and regulators adding to the &4 billion a day loss problem. Adding up to a cool trillion picked from the pockets of taxpayers by political mismanagement.
Meanwhile, unnoticed by congress, a report surfaced that Chase did a research project that determined that states and cities are understating their unfounded pension obligations by a magnitude of four. The real number is $4 trillion. Chase only made this report available to their top 100 customers.
This might be a SEC violation to withhold this information
Of course, it should be of intense interest to the clowns in the circus act. No one is looking at a shortfall of this magnitude. Combined with the federal shortfall, it portends bigger problems than we have seen addressed.
Of course, Chase is still underwriting bonds for these states and cities.
The men and women we pay to find and solve problems, like the one uncovered by Chase, want to help Chase with a problem that is unique to Chase, but ignore a problem that governments created. A problem that will diminish the futures of our kids and grand kids.
But don’t forget the Roger Clemens trial is winding down. Soon we will know is he goes to prison for lying to the clowns.
How many clowns could we put in jail for lying to us?
