Financial Reform

Chamber CEO Backs JP Morgan And Dimon In Wake Of Huge Trading Losses

Brian Beutler | May 21, 2012, 12:38PM

Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue says further regulation is the wrong response to news that banking giant JP Morgan lost billions of dollars speculating with depositor money. And though he allowed that the development raises legitimate questions about the size of major banks, Donohue defended JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon from the criticism he's received since he announced the staggering losses 10 days ago.

"Nobody's clear about the Volcker Rule," Donohue told reporters at a Monday breakfast roundtable hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "It's 270 some pages and if you gave it to six experts on the subject, they'd come back with seven interpretations what it means [but] I do also understand why the regulators start looking at the size of some of these places that they really worry."

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Jamie Dimon

Volcker To Dimon: Just Give Up Your Banking License And We're Cool (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | May 16, 2012, 1:22PM

How's this for serendipity?

Just a couple weeks before Jamie Dimon announced publicly that his banking firm JPMorgan had lost a stunning $2 billion betting with depositor funds, he took to Fox News to criticize the Volcker Rule, meant to ban federally backstopped banks from engaging in proprietary trading.

Bill Moyers invited former Fed chairman Paul Volcker -- the architect of the rule -- to respond:

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Debt Ceiling

How Republicans Are Convincing Themselves That A Debt Default Wouldn't Be So Bad -- And Why They're Wrong

Brian Beutler | May 20, 2011, 1:53PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Congressional Republicans are falling under the spell of an unorthodox group of financial experts who dispute the views of their peers and say that the U.S. could default briefly on debt payments without major, lasting consequences to the U.S. economy and international markets.

The most influential of these dissidents is Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire former-hedge fund manager who helped George Soros build his fortune. His recent comments to the Wall Street Journal have carried the day with senior Republicans like House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (WI), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA), and Sen. Pat Toomey (PA), all of whom now say the U.S. could weather three or four days of missed interest payments, as long as the U.S. debt ceiling were quickly lifted, and a credible debt reduction plan signed into law.

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