Profiting from loss

One thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned much in the debate over these 'too big to fail' investment banks is they're also just plain too big. The other day, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said "the U.S. can rescue its banking system by the end of the year if officials start cooperating and stop the 'vilification' of corporate America." If "officials start cooperating?" That sounds like pretty much like a threat to me. And so does this.

“If we act like a dysfunctional family and we don’t finish these things and we’re forever debating them, I think this will go on for several years,” Dimon, 52, said at a conference hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “It’s completely up to us at this point.”

Who is this "us" he speaks of, I wonder. I don't think it's you and me.

Interestingly, Mr. Simon is also on the list of the top ten people who benefited from the crash. I'm no economist but it seems to me that there's something very wrong with a system that rewards greed and failure. The temptation to deliberately cause failure is obvious. No entity should have that kind of power.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]