MORGAN CHASE 2 JP
319 age of trump
OOPS SEE OTHER 2
MERRI OK
EPSTEIN
SEE JAMIE DIMON 180 ON ESG AND AGW 1 25
see crypto
DISASTER CAP’L?
INAUGURATION
TRUMP LAWSUIT DEBANK
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heated gmail 9 26
some blame where it’s due.
Fossil fuel companies, obviously. (Truly, no clue how those executives sleep at night.) And I gave you my two cents on big ag.
Also:
Big banks: Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, 60 banks have provided $7.9 trillion in financing to fossil fuel companies, with the top four banks alone—JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America—providing more than $1.64 trillion.
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Epstein’s crimes left a long money trail, and that trail winds back to Russia. Ranking Member of the Finance Committee Ron Wyden has doggedly sought the truth about Epstein’s transactions with Russian banks and eastern European entities. One Suspicious Activity Report filed by JP Morgan Chase after Epstein’s death shows that between 2003 and 2019, Epstein conducted 4,725 wire transactions totaling over $1 billion. And that’s just one bank. Epstein used multiple banks.
According to JP Morgan Chase, the wire activity was flagged for being “consistent with […] alleged sex trafficking of minors” and for involving “the high risk jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.” CNN notes that two accounts included in the Suspicious Activity Report were linked to now-sanctioned Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank. Also named in the Suspicious Activity Reports: Maxwell, associated entities like Brunel’s MC2 Model Management, and various women and girls.
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ref cnn
One month afterJeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, JPMorgan Chase reported to US authorities of more than one billion dollars in transactions it viewed as suspicious, according to newly unsealed court records.
The notification was made on September 26, 2019, in a suspicious activity report, which is a kind of confidential report financial institutions file with the Treasury Department to flag potentially nefarious activity.
JPMorgan’s report highlights over $1 billion in transactions Epstein engaged in from October 2003 until July 2019 with numerous related companies, Wall Street titans, his former lawyer and others. Two accounts included in the report were linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank.
The bank wrote in the SAR it was flagging the transactions because of negative media about Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors, media reports of allegations Epstein misappropriating money as an investment adviser, his use of multiple accounts, the Russian banks, and his relationships with two US presidents.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking underaged girls. He died weeks later by suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center while awaiting trial.
Judge Jed Rakoff ordered the unsealing of the records, which were part of a lawsuit between the US Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase, following requests by The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class action lawsuit from survivors of Epstein and an additional $75 million to settle with USVI, where Epstein owned an island. There was no admission of wrongdoing in these settlements.
The documents are the latest in a slow release of materials tied to Epstein as public demand for accountability and transparency about Epstein has gone global. Thursday, Britain’s King Charles took the extraordinary step of stripping his brother Andrew of his prince title. The Justice Department remains under pressure to release more information about its investigation into Epstein, and House lawmakers are taking depositions for their investigation.
Included in the hundreds of pages of unsealed documents are emails between Epstein and Jes Staley, a former top official at JPMorgan bank, who in 2021 resigned as head of Barclays bank following media scrutiny over his long relationship with Epstein. This year, Staley said he didn’t know about Epstein’s involvement with underaged girls but admitted in court that he had sex with one of Epstein’s assistants.
Among the pages are emails between Epstein and Staley, with Epstein suggesting he could set up meetings for Staley to recruit new clients including the co-founders of Google and heads of nations. None of the individuals were accused of any wrongdoing.
Prior to Epstein’s death in 2019, JPMorgan filed a number of SARs involving the disgraced financier’s accounts, and the documents show banking officials shared news articles about Epstein’s alleged activities. JPMorgan closed its accounts with Epstein in 2013, five years after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges and reached a non-prosecution agreement with the US attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida.
The newly unsealed records include the SARs, including one dating as far back as 2002, as well as the last one filed in September 2019.
“Generally, the only new material here is the SARs themselves. Those basically summarize financial information produced in litigation, much of which has been public for years. The SARs do confirm what’s been inferred all along: the bank filed SARs about Epstein early on, and specifically when it exited Epstein from the bank in 2013 – and repeatedly between 2013 and 2019, as required,” said Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase. “It does not appear that anyone in the government or law enforcement acted on those SARs for years.”
In the batch of documents, there’s a letter from the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida which in 2007 sought records from Bear Stearns, one of Epstein’s banks that was later acquired by JPMorgan, as part of its then investigation into Epstein that resulted in the non-prosecution agreement.
One of the biggest Wall Street names mentioned on the list of transactions on the 2019 SAR is Leon Black, a long-time associate of Epstein, who has maintained that Epstein gave him financial advice.
“After an exhaustive investigation more than four years ago, the Dechert law firm concluded that Mr. Black paid Epstein only for tax and estate planning advice that saved him and his family billions of dollars. To imply that Epstein somehow had influence over Mr. Black is false and patently absurd,” Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, said in a statement. “Indeed, it was Mr. Black who fired Epstein because he was disruptive and believed the fees for his services were excessive. The Dechert Report also found that Mr. Black had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.”
The unsealed records include emails between Staley and Epstein about meeting in 2010 with then Prince Andrew. The then-Prince emailed Staley, “Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, has asked JPMorgan for banking records and suggested officials turned a blind eye to Epstein’s conduct to make millions of dollars in fees from his accounts.
In a recent response, the bank denied knowledge of Epstein’s activities, writing, “with the exception of former JPMC executive Jes Staley, the bank’s executives (current and former) are respected professionals who acted with integrity and would never have allowed Epstein to remain a client if they knew of his ongoing crimes.”
“The Firm deeply regrets having had Epstein as a client and would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he engaged in ongoing criminal conduct,” the bank also said.
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Let’s go back to the journalist Vicky Ward:
“[…] sources, who range from former arms dealers to former spies — and also Hoffenberg — suggest that Epstein, who lacked any sort of moral compass, decided to […] compromise influential people by recording them doing things they wouldn’t want made public.
“[…] And once he got out of jail, in the last 10 years of his life, Epstein bragged to various people, including journalists, that he was advising a whole assortment of foreign leaders who included Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Zayed, Mohammed Bin Salman, various African dictators, Israel, the British — and, of course, the Americans.
“He also told several of the same people that he was making a fortune out of arms, drugs, and diamonds.
“He was known in the intelligence world as a ‘hyper-fixer,’ somebody who can go between different cultures and networks.”
Epstein was known for his parties, which he insisted on hosting in his various mansions where he could completely control the environment. Many of Epstein’s victims have said they believe they were recorded. Virginia Giuffre wrote in her posthumous memoir that Epstein had a “huge library of videotapes” and a room in his New York home where monitors displayed real-time surveillance footage from his properties. “He explicitly talked about using me and what I’d been forced to do with certain men as a form of blackmail, so these men would owe him favors,” she wrote.
Another survivor said Epstein once walked her through his mansion, pointing out pin-sized cameras. He boasted that they were in every room.
According to Epstein’s emails, in 2014 he directed a staffer to procure hidden cameras, which were installed in tissue boxes. The New York Times obtained photos of the interior of Epstein’s New York mansion, which show a camera installed near the ceiling of the master bedroom and another along the molding of an adjoining room. The Times also spotted cameras near a suite of bathrooms on the same floor as Epstein’s bedroom. When police searched his Palm Beach home in 2005, they “located two covert (hidden) cameras.” Both cameras were located inside clocks, one by a desk and the other in the garage. It’s worth noting that Epstein often seemed to get tipped off in advance as to when the Palm Beach Police would be dropping by.
Epstein is said to have once told an ex-girlfriend, “I collect people, I own people, I can damage people.”
The disgraced financier Hoffenberg allegedly claimed to the National Enquirer in a final account before his death that, “Wherever Epstein was entertaining he [and Ghislaine] were taping.” That report was only released last summer, as Hoffenberg had asked the Enquirer not to publish his comments until three years after his death.
According to The Daily Beast, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta, is once said to have claimed Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and that the decision to let him off easy in 2008 was made above his “pay grade.”
The Prime Minister of Poland, a country that has extensive experience with Russian intelligence operations, has opened an investigation into potential links between Epstein and Russian intelligence. Prime Minister Tusk said, “More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services.”
According to alleged anonymous intelligence sources published in the British tabloid The Daily Mail last month, some believe “Jeffrey Epstein was running ‘the world’s largest honeytrap operation’ on behalf of the KGB when he procured women for his network of associates.”
I want to stress that we don’t have the answers. Epstein was an inveterate liar and criminal who often sought to exaggerate his power and influence, and the files need to be viewed through that lens. He could have been working with an intelligence agency, or several intelligence agencies. He could have just been what the Russians call a “useful idiot.” We may never know.
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AN 2 26
JPMorgan Chase took issue with Donald Trump's attempt to name its CEO, Jamie Dimon, in a major lawsuit against the bank, alleging in a new court filing that his inclusion was done "fraudulently."
In January, Trump filed suit against the banking giant, accusing it of putting himself and his businesses on a "blacklist" following his first term, effectively "debanking" him. The suit further alleges that this decision was directed by Dimon and is seeking $5 billion in damages.
It was that detail that the company went after in a court filing submitted on Thursday, per a report from Bloomberg. In it, JPMorgan Chase claimed that Trump's inclusion of Dimon as a defendant in the lawsuit was done "fraudulently," in order to get the case filed in Florida state court, where Trump has tended to land sympathetic judges, and avoid going to federal court.
The company explained that Dimon cannot be included in the suit under the Florida unfair trade practices law cited by the president, because he is "closely and comprehensively regulated by the federal banking agencies. The filing seeks to have the case moved to a federal court in Miami, with plans to move it again to a state court in New York somewhere down the line.
The bank's ultimate goal is to have the "threadbare" lawsuit dismissed. Lawyers for the bank accused the suit of being "unclear" on key points of its argument, particularly about the "blacklist" at the core of its argument.
“They do not explain what this ‘blacklist’ entails, when it was created, to whom it was supposedly circulated, or any other detail describing it,” the bank's lawyers said. “Nor is it plausible that JPMorgan could create such a list consistent with the complex federal regulatory scheme to which it is subject.”
In a statement to Bloomberg, Trump's legal team stood by the claims in the lawsuit, though it did not provide evidence to counter JPMorgan's assertions. The team also claimed, as they have often done, that Trump is suing the company in the name of the little guy, as he "is standing up for all those wrongly debanked by JPMorgan Chase and their cohorts."
"By their own admission, JPMorgan Chase, at the direction of CEO Jamie Dimon, unlawfully debanked and blacklisted President Trump, his family, and several of his businesses, causing overwhelming financial and reputational harm," the statement read.
The same day that this filing was submitted, the Financial Times reported that JPMorgan Chase has been in talks to provide banking services for Trump's "Board of Peace" initiative. It is unclear how this deal might impact the lawsuit, and vice versa. Though not known as an outspoken Trump opponent, Dimon recently called out Trump's demand to have all credit card interest capped at 10 percent, calling the idea an "economic disaster."
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AN 1 26
Today, as more than 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents — possibly joined by 1,500 active duty military, as Trump threatened yesterday — patrol Minneapolis, hundreds of global CEOs and titans of finance and more than 60 prime ministers and presidents are gathering in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual confab of the world’s powerful and wealthy, called the World Economic Forum.
This year’s Davos meeting occurs at a time when Trump is not just unleashing his brown shirts on Minneapolis but also dismantling the international order that’s largely been in place since the end of World War II — threatening NATO, withdrawing from international organizations including the UN climate treaty, violating the United Nations Charter by invading Venezuela and abducting Nicolas Maduro, upending established trade rules, and demanding that the U.S. annex Greenland.
He’s even hiked tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland — fellow NATO members that have expressed solidarity with Denmark in its refusal to yield to Trump’s demand to annex Greenland.
I hope the leaders now assembling at Davos speak out against Trump’s tyrannous assault on international laws and rules. Their collective repudiation of Trump would give other CEOs and world leaders cover to express their opposition as well. It could be a tipping point.
Will they? Trump is trying to stop them from doing so.
For example, he announced Saturday that he’s suing JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, headed by one of the most prominent CEOs in the world — Jamie Dimon — who is now in Davos.
Trump said he’s suing JPMorgan “for incorrectly and inappropriately DEBANKING me after the January 6th Protest, a protest that turned out to be correct for those doing the protesting – The Election was RIGGED!”
Rubbish. There’s no evidence that Chase “debanked” Trump. (And obviously no evidence that the 2020 election was “rigged.”) Besides, if Trump thought the bank acted improperly, why would he be suing it now, five years later?
In reality, Trump’s lawsuit has nothing to do with any so-called “debanking.” Trump is suing JPMorgan Chase because last week Dimon came out publicly against Trump’s criminal probe of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and apparently Trump worries about what Dimon might say at Davos.
Dimon’s opposition to the criminal investigation was couched in the mildest of terms: “Anything that chips away at [the Fed’s independence] is not a good idea. And in my view, will have the reverse consequences. It’ll increase inflation expectations and probably increase rates over time.”
Yet Dimon’s comment infuriated Trump.
Presumably, the reason Trump says he’ll sue JPMorgan “over the next two weeks” rather than immediately is because Trump wants to maximize the pressure on Dimon.
Dimon has a major speaking role at Davos. If Dimon uses it as an opportunity to blast Trump for taking a wrecking ball to the world economy as well as democracy, he gives cover to every other CEO and many heads of state to criticize Trump, too.
But if Trump can intimidate Dimon into silence, it’s unlikely any other CEO will risk it.
Hence, Trump’s shot across JPMorgan’s bow — aimed not so much at winning a lawsuit against the bank as silencing Dimon and others.
Does Dimon have enough integrity to put the bank’s profits and his own compensation ($770 million for 2025) at risk by speaking the truth — that Trump must be opposed by anyone still possessing power and integrity?
We will see, but I’m not betting on it. Dimon has shown time and again that he has more loyalty to JPMorgan than to the United States. His mild criticism of Trump for undermining the independence of the Fed could reflect no more than concern for his bank’s bottom line.
But who knows? Dimon will soon be retiring. This is his opportunity to be on the right side of history.
To ensure that the assembled CEOs and heads of state are cowed, Trump is traveling to Davos himself and taking with him the largest U.S. delegation ever to attend the meeting, including five Cabinet secretaries and other senior officials.
Will any prime minister or other head of state attending Davos dare repudiate Trump, when Trump is showing no qualms about raising tariffs on, or otherwise punishing, countries that oppose him?
Perhaps, but at most meekly and indirectly. Who wants to taunt the bear?
Yet Dimon and others at Davos must speak out against what is occurring. If there were ever a time for world leadership, it is now.
Davos’s excuse for existing is supposed to be world leadership — although its attendees have not exactly distinguished themselves in the past by their fealty to democracy, social justice, or the rules of international law. Some are directly benefiting from Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks. Many occupy their positions precisely because of their reluctance to rock any big boats or cause any trouble.
Yet if there were ever a time for them to speak out, it is now. This is their opportunity. It is also their duty. The world needs to hear from world leaders a clear and firm denunciation of the havoc Trump is wreaking.
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HCR 9 25
An in-depth article in the New York Times Magazineyesterday by David Enrich, Matthew Goldstein, and Jessica Silver-Greenberg detailed how top bankers at JPMorgan Chase ignored the many red flags around Epstein’s financial activities to keep the wealthy and well-connected man as a treasured client. It was only after Epstein was arrested the second time, federal prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking, and he died in his jail cell that JPMorgan filed a report retroactively flagging 4,700 transactions totaling more than $1.1 billion as suspicious.
According to Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), that money included hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions involving women in Belarus, Russia, and Turkmenistan, and two Russian banks.
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https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/conflicted-new-report-exposes-trump-s-crypto-connections-243308613599}:}:
trump fam made more money on crypto than in whole hist of co in real estate?!
memecoin 2 bit players www hustlers, got hacked; liberty financial 500m$ 400m real money in trump pocket; had no product
1/2 hse paid 4B$ fine money launder
stablecoin USD1 world lib fin; backed 1:1 with real US dollars, used by drug traffic; bill does nothing on laundering; anon wallet
jamie dimond JPM 20k empl on compliance; tether has 150 ppl TOTAL
140m$ war chest sherrod b 40m$ , num 1 more than oil/gas see politico
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https://www.alternet.org/scientists-urge-jpmorgan-shareholders/
open ltr 1300
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AN 1 25
Big Wall Street banks are hoping that President-elect Donald Trump will kill several major regulations imposed on the financial industry — including one set of rules aimed at preventing another 2008-style financial crash.
That's according to a Saturday article in the Guardian, which reported that banks are optimistic about the incoming administration's regulatory agenda. Some bankers are particularly eager about the possibility of Trump taking an axe to the Basel III rules, which were put in place in response to the global banking crisis that preceded the Great Recession of the late aughts.
In a 2024 article, Investopedia described **Basel III as an international set of guidelines developed by 28 countries that established "minimum capital, leverage and liquidity requirements to ensure major banks could survive another upheaval." This was a response to the forced bailouts of banks deemed "too big to fail," requiring an infusion of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to keep financial institutions afloat.
READ MORE:Wall Street banks accused of trying to sabotage key consumer protection rule
In addition to Basel III, Trump could undo some of the anti-too-big-to-fail provisions in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act. This includes a mandatory "stress test" from the Federal Reserve imposed on all financial institutions with more than $50 billion in assets. Dodd-Frank also requires banks to put forth a "living will" that serves as a plan in the event a bank should fail.
A.J. Bell investment analyst Dan Coatsworth told the Guardian that big banks are optimistic about their treatment under Trump's second term given his promises to roll back corporate regulations. He said banks' surging stock prices in the wake of the election symbolizes Wall Street's bullish attitude toward the incoming administration, but emphasized that the industry didn't want so much deregulation that it would risk future instability.
“Trump wants to make things easier for banks, but he won’t want to risk any damage to the financial system,” Coatsworth told the Guardian. “That means being more lenient with rules but not having them too loose."
Financial institutions are also excited about Trump's stated opposition to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement in which investors are encouraged to hold their wealth in industries deemed to be more sustainable. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has already suggested he would roll back the company's previous commitments to address climate change, and "use the word ‘commitment’ much more reservedly in the future" in regard to pro-environment pledges.
READ MORE:(Opinion) Why Jamie Dimon loves Trump's policies
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Dozens arrested as scientists worldwide mobilize to demand 'climate revolution'
Jake Johnson and Common Dreams April 07, 2022
More than 1,000 scientists across the globe chained themselves to the doors of oil-friendly banks, blocked bridges, and occupied the steps of government buildings on Wednesday to send an urgent message to the international community: The ecological crisis is accelerating, and only a "climate revolution" will be enough to avert catastrophe.
What organizers described as "the world's largest-ever scientist-led civil disobedience campaign" kicked off just days after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report detailing the grim state of efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C by century's end, a target set by the Paris accord.
As one of the report's authors put it during a press call earlier this week, "Unless there are immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, 1.5°C is beyond reach."
Warning that the IPCC report's language was watered down at the behest of governments unwilling to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, scientists and their allies took that message further during their direct actions on Wednesday, operating under the slogan "1.5°C is dead, climate revolution now!"
"I'm taking action because I feel desperate," said U.S. climate scientist Peter Kalmus, who along with several others locked himself to the front door of a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles. A recent report found that the financial giant is the biggest private funder of oil and gas initiatives in the world.
"It's the 11th hour in terms of Earth breakdown, and I feel terrified for my kids, and terrified for humanity," Kalmus continued. "World leaders are still expanding the fossil fuel industry as fast as they can, but this is insane. The science clearly indicates that everything we hold dear is at risk, including even civilization itself and the wonderful, beautiful, cosmically precious life on this planet. I actually don't get how any scientist who understands this could possibly stay on the sidelines at this point."
The Los Angeles demonstration was accompanied by other protests across the U.S., the largest historical emitter of planet-warming carbon dioxide and home to some of the most powerful fossil fuel companies in the world.
In Washington, D.C., climate scientists chained themselves to the White House fence and were ultimately arrested as theydemanded that U.S. President Joe Biden declare a "climate emergency," a step that would unlock a range of tools needed to combat global warming.
"We have not made the changes necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C, rendering this goal effectively impossible," said Dr. Rose Abramoff, one of the scientists arrested at the White House. "We need to both understand the consequences of our inaction as well as limit fossil fuel emissions as much and as quickly as possible."
"I'm taking action to urge governments and society to stop ignoring the collective findings of decades of research," Abramoff added. "Let's make this crisis impossible to ignore."
Similar acts of civil disobedience were held across the globe as scientists took to the streets to demand that governments ramp up their transitions to renewable energy as the climate crisis intensifies extreme weather, endangers critical ecosystems, and takes lives worldwide.
In Madrid, Spain, scientists splashed red paint on the walls and steps of the Congress of Deputies to decry lawmakers' inaction in the face of the existential climate threat. More than 50 scientists were arrested during the demonstration, according to organizers.
Scientists also mobilized in Germany, blocking a bridge near the country's parliament building.
In an op-ed published in The Guardian on Wednesday, Kalmus warned that "Earth breakdown is much worse than most people realize."
"The science indicates that as fossil fuels continue to heat our planet,everything we love is at risk,"he wrote. "For me, one of the most horrific aspects of all this is the juxtaposition of present-day and near-future climate disasters with the 'business as usual' occurring all around me. It's so surreal that I often find myself reviewing the science to make sure it's really happening, a sort of scientific nightmare arm-pinch. Yes, it's really happening."
"If everyone could see what I see coming," Kalmus added, "society would switch into climate emergency mode and end fossil fuels in just a few years."
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ref report
despite 'Splashy' Net-Zero Vows, Big Banks Dumping Trillions Into Fossil Fuels
"With Wall Street banks leading the charge, these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all."
March 30, 2022
Flouting their public vows to put themselves and their clients on a path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's 60 largest private banks have provided a total of $4.6 trillion in financing for the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016.
That's according to the latest edition of Banking on Climate Chaos, an annual report that tracks the banking industry's funding of oil and gas initiatives that are threatening global hopes of reining in carbon pollution and averting climate disaster.
In 2021 alone, the report finds, the world's biggest private-sector banks financed oil and gas to the tune of $742 billion. That year, the 60 banks featured in the new analysis poured $185.5 billion into the 100 companies doing the most to expand the fossil-fuel sector worldwide through offshore drilling, fracking, coal mining, liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and more. Authored by Oil Change International, the Rainforest Action Network, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and other groups and endorsed by hundreds of organizations from around the world, the report published Wednesday spotlights the marked contrast between banks' public commitments to net-zero emissions targets and their actions, which reflect a continued stake in fossil fuel development.
The worst offenders in the banking industry, according to the report, are the U.S. financial behemoths JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America,which together accounted for 25% of all fossil fuel financing identified over the past six years.
The report highlights a number of specific projects, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America), drilling in offshore Guyana (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America), and the Line 3 Pipeline (funded by TD, Scotiabank, and the Bank of Montreal), efforts that have drawn fierce resistance from Indigenous communities.
"Indigenous peoples have long been leading the fight for the sacredness of the land, water, and Earth," Mea Johnson, divestment campaign coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement Wednesday. "Mother Earth has always given us what we need to thrive. We will not back down until our natural balance is restored and anyone helping fund the extractive destruction of our communities will be held accountable."
Alison Kirsch, research and policy manager at the Rainforest Action Network, added that "any further expansion of fossil fuels risks locking humanity into generations of climate catastrophe, yet the top fossil clients of the world's largest banks are still being showered with tens of billions of dollars even as they actively expand drilling, mining, fracking, and other fossil fuel development unabated."
"With Wall Street banks leading the charge," Kirsch added, "these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all and must immediately end their support of any further fossil fuel infrastructure expansion."
The banks' financing decisions fly in the face of their own pledges to bring their policies into line with critical climate goals, such as achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a benchmark that 44 of the 60 banks profiled in the new report have backed.
"But global banks have massively supported the companies doing the most to open new oil and gas fields," notes the new report. "Banks with net-zero commitments last year... financed the top 20 upstream oil and gas expansion companies, potentially helping to lock the planet into decades of climate-warming emissions." According to the International Energy Agency, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 would mean ensuring "no new oil and gas fields."
Adele Shraiman, a representative for theSierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign, said Wednesday that the analysis "makes it clear that banks must clean up their act and stop funding the expansion of dirty fossil fuel projects like fracked gas exports, tar sands pipelines, and offshore drilling in order to align with what the science demands and what their own commitments require."
"Despite their splashy climate pledges, big banks have largely continued with business-as-usual and actually increased their overall fossil fuel financing since the Paris Agreement," said Shraiman. "As we look ahead to shareholder season, we'll be keeping up the pressure on the banks and their investors to take these critical reforms seriously and stop bankrolling the fossil fuel industry's reckless expansion plans."
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LAT
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-11/jpmorgan-board-climate-activists
no lnx
feb 2020
Few people are in a position to influence Jamie Dimon, the chief executive who turned JPMorgan Chase & Co. into the biggest U.S. bank. The longtime climate skeptic who turned Exxon Mobil Corp. into the biggest U.S. oil company is one of them.
Lee R. Raymond, 81, holds the top position on JPMorgan’s 11-member board after Dimon. He has occupied his seat for 33 years, making him both the longest-serving and oldest director among Wall Street’s biggest banks. He helped guide JPMorgan through mega-mergers after mastering them at Exxon, backed Dimon during his rise and has stood by him. Even as the bank draws fire for lending billions to the fossil fuel industry, the former oil executive’s power inside the $2.7-trillion financial firm has gone little noticed.
That’s about to change.
A nonprofit group called Majority Action is beginning a fight this week to use shareholder voting to remove Raymond from JPMorgan.The group argues that Raymond’s role as the lead independent director and his coziness with Big Oil compromises JPMorgan’s capacity to react to the climate crisis.
“This is really going to be an important moment,” said Eli Kasargod-Staub, executive director of Majority Action. “The gap between what is needed and JPMorgan’s behavior is egregious.”
The oil veteran’s relationship with Dimon gives him special status inside the bank, and makes the campaign against him a long shot. Raymond is described in public filings as the chief executive’s sounding board, advisor on long-term strategy and guide for annual performance reviews, as well as a key voice in who will one day succeed him. He oversees the board’s agenda, has the discretion to call members together whenever he wants, and runs meetings in Dimon’s absence.
Raymond has a reputation among colleagues for being brilliant, logical and gruff, an old-school businessman. “After everyone had his say or her say, Lee’s point of view was heavily influential with everyone else,” said former Hearst boss Frank A. Bennack Jr., who served on JPMorgan’s board until 2004. “I would describe him as eminently able to influence.”
A spokesman for the bank said Raymond “contributes to the success of the company in countless ways.” In his leadership, the spokesman added, he ensures “that the board represents a wide range of views and perspectives and hears from them as well.”
Majority Action, which works with investors to hold corporations accountable, has managed to win attention from shareholders. The group failed to topple Facebook Inc. boss Mark Zuckerberg but helped pressure gun maker Sturm Ruger & Co. into engaging with investors over safety concerns.It’s now trying to persuade JPMorgan not to re-nominate Raymond or else persuade investors to vote against him at the annual board election in May. Even though he left the top job at Exxon Mobil in 2005, the group sees him as intertwined with the fossil fuel industry.
The length of Raymond’s tenure may help the effort to end it. He should have aged out almost a decade ago, but he has received special approval to stay on past the board’s own retirement age of 72. His 33-year run is three times longer than what JPMorgan’s own asset-management arm considers appropriate for independent directors across most of the world.
Dimon is the only top executive to remain at the helm after leading a big U.S. bank through the financial crisis, and he’s the one who ultimately decides how JPMorgan navigates global warming. It had $44 billion of loans out to the oil and gas industry as of the end of September 2019, the most after Citigroup Inc. Those loans accounted for just 4.7% of JPMorgan’s corporate total, a slight decline from a year earlier.
Climate change is already changing Wall Street. JPMorgan’s environmental policy now “recognizes that climate change poses global challenges and risks,” and the firm is expected to discuss environmental issues at its investor day later this month, according to a person briefed on its plans. Joe Evangelisti, a spokesman, said JPMorgan supports the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change and is more than halfway to a goal of facilitating $200 billion of clean-energy financing through 2025. “We continually strengthen our practices and policies around environmental issues, with more to come,” he said.
Last year, in another example of climate concern reaching into high finance, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. pledged to turn down financing that supports new coal mines and upstream Arctic oil exploration. The European Investment Bank, the lending arm of the European Union and the biggest multilateral financial institution in the world, recently adopted an unprecedented strategy to end funding for fossil fuel energy projects.
Things were different when Raymond was a master of the oil industry. He joined Exxon Corp. in 1963 and rose to the top job three decades later. During his time at the helm he cut investment in renewable fuels, pushed countries to unite against emission limitations, and in 1997 said the planet was cooling. The head of Greenpeace’s climate campaign once called him “the Darth Vader of global warming.”
JPMorgan has been a top banker to Exxon for decades and advised on two of its biggest takeovers, including the merger that created Exxon Mobil in 1999 by reuniting two old pieces of the Standard Oil monopoly. Only a few months later, as a board member of what was then J.P. Morgan & Co., Raymond encouraged the merger with Chase Manhattan Corp., according to a person who worked with him. The two corporate giants Raymond helped put together are among the few public U.S. companies to have ever made more than $35 billion in annual profit.
JPMorgan has relationships with other members of Raymond’s family. It has extended credit to an energy investment firm run by one of Raymond’s triplet sons, according to public disclosures, and companies connected to Energy & Minerals Group, a private equity firm run by a second. The third son runs a drilling company in which the four men have owned stakes, according to a 2018 filing. (JPMorgan said it doesn’t comment on specific clients.)
Wall Street’s profits from the oil industry are under more scrutiny than ever. Dimon said at the World Economic Forum in January that climate change would be solved by government policy, not “beating up on fossil fuel companies and banks.” A few weeks later, environmental activists disrupted a talk he gave in Florida.
They’ve criticized his rivals, too. Climate protesters with whistles and drums stopped traffic outside Goldman’s London office in April, and others kept Wells Fargo & Co. employees from entering its San Francisco headquarters in September.
Majority Action’s new effort against Raymond, backed by environmental group Rainforest Action Network, shows there are more targets at big banks than chief executives. “He should be out,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who sits on the finance and environment committees, wrote Monday on Twitter. “He lied about climate for years.”
Environmental activist Bill McKibben called JPMorgan’s annual vote “a big slap in the face to anyone who cares about the future.” He was arrested at a branch of the bank in Washington last month while protesting against oil investments.
“There’s a big campaign against Chase,” he said, “and it’s going to get bigger.”
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420 srch
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Search Results
Politico
Oil sector skeptical of Trump plans
TRUMP WANTS TO LOOK INTO ANWR 'DISCRIMINATION': Alaska Sen. ... Citigroup both ruled out financing oil and gas projects in the Arctic last week, ... including no longer underwriting any coal projects and divesting any ...
4 hours ago
Alaska Public Media News
Wells Fargo becomes third major US bank to nix Arctic oil ...
Wells Fargo says it won't finance oil development in the Arctic ... have been campaigning for banks to divest from Arctic fossil fuels. In the 2017 tax bill, Congress ordered the government to auction off drilling rights in ANWR.
Mar 2, 2020
EcoWatch
Goldman Sachs Is First U.S. Big Bank to Divest From Arctic Oil and Gas
Goldman Sachs, one of the world's largest investment banks, gave a minor victory to the divestment movement by declaring that it will not fund ...
Dec 16, 2019
MultiBriefs Exclusive (blog)
As 2020 begins, news from the Arctic offers scant ...
There's perhaps no better litmus test for climate health than Arctic ice, which is ... to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from drilling. ... and Liberty Mutual to divest from some dirty energy projects like Arctic oil and ...
Jan 1, 2020
Common Dreams
Even 'Worst Fossil Fuel Banker' JPMorgan Chase Will No Longer Fund This Way of Destroying the Planet
"For the world's biggest banker of Arctic oil and gas to stop funding new fossil ... of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to fossil fuel extraction. ... management, the bank should be divesting "from any companies that are ...
Feb 25, 2020
NPR
As Climate Warnings Grow Dire, Energy Companies Face A ...
Litigation and global divestment campaigns ... But drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a "reputational minefield," he said.
Dec 2, 2019
EnviroNews (blog)
Trump Admin Opens Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Oil ...
Democrats had been able to successfully protect the ANWR from Republican attacks — until Trump's tax bill. “Arctic Refuge drilling passed, not ...
Sep 14, 2019
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/robert-reich-breaks-down-how-oligarchs-are-cashing-in-on-the-pandemic/
no lnx
Robert Reich breaks down how oligarchs are ‘cashing in’ on the pandemic
Written by Keith A. Spencer / Salon April 19, 2020
dimon key in JPM
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/robert-reich-heres-how-ceos-are-ruining-america/
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220 ew
https://www.ecowatch.com/jp-morgan-economists-climate-crisis-2645218658.html
no lnx many
Julia Conley
Climate campaigners on Friday expressed hope that policymakers who are stalling on taking decisive climate action would reconsider their stance in light of new warnings from an unlikely source: two economists at J.P. Morgan Chase.
Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Rupert Read revealed Thursday that he had obtained a report, entitled "Risky Business: Climate and the Macroeconomy," by J.P. Morgan economists David Mackie and Jessica Murray. The report issued warnings to bank clients similar to those promoted by climate action groups — describing extreme weather events and global conditions that could result from the continued extraction of fossil fuels.
In doing so, the economists implicated the bank's own investment activities in the potentially catastrophic effects of the climate crisis.
J.P. Morgan is the world's largest financial backer of fossil fuel companies, helping to fund fracking, pipeline projects, and Arctic oil and gas exploration. The company has contributed $75 billion to such projects since the Paris climate agreement was forged in 2015. The agreement called on governments to reduce fossil fuel emissions to help limit global heating to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.
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If activities like the ones funded by J.P. Morgan continue to release fossil fuels into the atmosphere, Murray and Mackie wrote, "We cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened."
Failing to move away from global systems that scientists agree are causing the planet to warm "would likely push the Earth to a place that we haven't seen for many millions of years," they added.
On Twitter, Read pointed out the incongruity of such "radical truth-telling" coming from J.P. Morgan.
Others highlighted the report as one that might catch the attention of others in the financial services industry and people who believe bold climate action is a cause embraced by a minority of extremists.
"Hardly a bank you could call communist now, is it?" tweeted journalist Dom Phillips.
Citing reports by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the authors note that with the status quo kept in place, the planet is expected to reach a temperature 3.5° above pre-industrial levels.
In addition to major impacts on the world economy, the authors wrote, the climate crisis will affect human health, water supplies, and migration.
The report comes just weeks after CNBC host Jim Cramer announced fossil fuel investments are "in the death knell phase" and that "the world's turned on" the industry as it did on tobacco as understanding grew about the risks of smoking.
"It is clear that the Earth is on an unsustainable trajectory," reads the report. "Something will have to change at some point if the human race is going to survive."
The authors advocated for a global carbon tax but said, "This is not going to happen anytime soon" and called the continued investment in climate-warming fossil fuels a global problem with "no global solution ... in sight."
Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, suggested that as one solution, the economists "might want to talk with the Chase bankers who are guaranteeing [climate catastrophe] will happen by lending oil companies endless cash."
Activist Becky Brunton said the report offers the latest evidence that those with the power to stop supporting fossil fuel projects are fully aware of the damage their investments are doing to the planet.
"They know. They ALL know," tweeted Brunton. "But the now (profits) outweighs the future (earth)."
Reposted with permission from Common Dreams.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/greta-thunberg-and-20-youth-climate-activists-call-on-davos-attendees-to-abandon-the-fossil-fuel-economy/
no lnx
Greta Thunberg and 20 youth climate activists call on Davos attendees to ‘abandon the fossil fuel economy’
Written by Roxanne Cooper January 11, 2020
As climate groups launched a new campaign targeting Wall Street’s funding of the dirty energy industry and school strikers took part in weekly #FridaysForFuture protests across the globe, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg and 20 fellow youth activists published an op-ed calling on world leaders to “abandon the fossil fuel economy.”
“History has not shown thecorporate world’s willingness to hold themselves accountable. So it falls on us, the children, to do that.”
—youth climate activists
Business and government leaders will come together in Davos, Switzerland later this month for the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum. This year’s theme is “stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world.” Thunberg and her co-authors explain in the Guardian that “young climate activists and school strikers from around the world will be present to put pressure on these leaders.”
“We demand that at this year’s forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions, and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies, and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels,” the op-ed declares. “We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021, we want this done now—as in right now.”
The youth activists point out that despite the “climate and environmental emergency,” banks have collectively poured at least $1.9 trillion into the fossil fuel industry since global governments adopted the Paris climate agreement in December 2015, according to an analysis from the Rainforest Action Network and other advocacy groups.
“The world of finance has a responsibility to the planet, the people, and all other species living on it. In fact, it ought to be in every company and stakeholder’s interest to make sure the planet they live on will thrive,” says the op-ed. “But history has not shown the corporate world’s willingness to hold themselves accountable. So it falls on us, the children, to do that.”
“Anything less than immediately ceasing these investments in the fossil fuel industry would be a betrayal of life itself,” the op-ed concludes. “Today’s business as usual is turning into a crime against humanity. We demand that leaders play their part in putting an end to this madness. Our future is at stake, let that be their investment.”
Thunberg’s co-authors are Jean Hinchliffe, Australia; Danielle Ferreira de Assis, Brazil; Joel Enrique Peña Panichine, Chile; Robin Jullian, France; Luisa Neubauer, Germany; Licipriya Kangujam, India; David Wicker, Italy; Julia Haddad, Lebanon; Oladosu Adenike, Nigeria; Iqbal Badruddin, Pakistan; Arshak Makichyan, Russia; Holly Gillibrand, Scotland; Alejandro Martínez, Spain; Isabelle Axelsson, Sweden; Sophia Axelsson, Sweden; Ell Jarl, Sweden; Mina Pohankova, Sweden; Linus Dolder, Switzerland; Vanessa Nakate, Uganda; and Tokata Iron Eyes, the United States.
The op-ed was welcomed as “incredible” and a “barnburner” by adult climate leaders.
“Brilliant article by youth strikers from around the world,” tweeted the U.K. grassroots movement Labour for a Green New Deal. “We need to ditch fossil fuels immediately and build a new economy for people and planet. The ruling classes will never do it, so it’s up to us.”
Some organizers of Stop the Money Pipeline—which officially launched at Jane Fonda’s final #FireDrillFriday event on Capitol Hill—noted that the op-ed’s message aligned with theirs. As Common Dreams reported Thursday, the new campaign demands that banks, insurers, and asset managers cut ties with the fossil fuel companies that are wrecking the planet.
Moira Birss, finance campaign director at Amazon Watch, shared Stop the Money Pipeline’s website and the op-ed from youth activists in a series of tweets Friday:
Author and activist Bill McKibben, who co-founded the environmental group 350.org, was among a small group ofStop the Money Pipeline organizers arrested Friday for occupying a D.C. branch of JPMorgan Chase, one of the campaign’s top targets.
McKibben pointed to the op-ed in a Twitter thread about the Chase action:
“The world has two power centers, political and financial,” McKibben said in a statement Friday. “And we have to go after both if we have any hope of slowing down the pace of global heating.”
“Now truly, it is daunting to take on the sort of central pillars of global capital… These people are huge and strong and powerful,” McKibben said on the most recent Fire Drill Friday teach-in, which was livestreamed on Facebook Thursday night.
“On the other hand,” he added, “if we can get them to begin to bend, the effects will be rapid and global because all the money in the world is concentrated in a few places.”
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/10/climate-global-finance-745-billion-coal-plant-development
BlackRock, Vanguard, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chaseare among the top global financers of new coal development, according to new research presented during the United Nations climate summit in Madrid.
That research, published by the German NGO Urgewald along with BankTrack and 30 partner organizations, reveals and ranks the financial institutions sinking money into the dirtiest form of fossil fuels in the three years since the Paris Agreement was signed. The research shows hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed to 258 coal plant developers between January 2017 and September 2019 in the form of loans, investments, and underwriting. These groups clarify underwriting as the process of banks raising “investment capital for companies by issuing bonds or shares on their behalf and selling them to investors.”
“Over the past three years, financial institutions have channeled $745 billion to companies planning new coal power plants,” said Heffa Schuecking, director of Urgewald.
“Financial institutions are bringing us on a road to runaway climate change,” Urgewald’s Katrin Ganswindt added.
Over 1,000 new coal plants totaling 570 gigawatts of capacity are currently planned or “in the pipeline,” according to the new research. These projects would expand the global coal plant fleet by 28 percent.
This comes at a time when the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that coal-powered generation must decrease by 78 percent by 2030 for the world to have any chance of limiting global temperature rise to 2.7°F (1.5°C). The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for no new coal plant development after 2020.
“The UN Secretary General, the IPCC, and climate scientists worldwide have time and again called for a speedy phase-out of coal-based energy production, but most financial institutions are still turning a deaf ear,” said Schuecking.
While Japanese and Chinese institutions were identified as the top lenders and underwriters of coal development over the past three years, U.S. institutions led in terms of coal investments. BlackRock, the research found, was the top institutional investor with $17.6 billion in holdings in 86 coal plant developers. Vanguard ($12.4 billion) and Capital Group ($9 billion) ranked third and fourth.
Overall, 1,922 institutional investors held $276 billion in bonds and shares in coal developers. U.S. investors accounted for 29 percent of this investment. Other U.S. institutions ranked in the top 30 coal investors include JPMorgan Chase, Fidelity Investments, and Dimensional Fund Advisors.
JPMorgan Chase also ranked in the top 30 in terms of underwriters and lenders in coal development, as did Citigroup.For lending, Citigroup was ranked fourth with $5.7 billion. Chinese institutions accounted for 69 percent of underwriting in coal development, but Citigroup ($8.8 billion) and JPMorgan Chase ($6.2 billion) were still significant underwriters. A report released earlier this year found JPMorgan Chase to be the leading financer of fossil fuels overall, sinking $196 billion into coal, oil, and gas since 2016.
Financing for coal alone, as the new NGO research shows, is still huge and must be addressed under the guidance of the Paris Agreement. In November, French insurer AXA announced its intention to phase out investments and underwriting of the coal industry and its backers, which according to Urgewald’s Global Coal Exit Database, represents nearly $664 million in investments.
“Financial institutions that continue channeling money to coal plant developers are actively working against the Paris Climate Goals and ruining our chances for a livable future,” said Schuecking.
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private prisons, child detention facility & weapons profiteers
As we reported in our last newsletter, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan announced they would stop financing private prisons, in a big win for the #FamiliesBelongTogether coalition and #BackersOfHate campaign. But we’re not stopping the work to expose and hold to account private prison profiteers. In April, along with our friends In the Public Interest and the Center for Popular Democracy, we published a new report “The Wall Street Banks Still Financing Private Prisons.” We also participated in a Twitter Chat hosted by our coalition partners Moms Rising to explain the research on private prisons and the banks financing them.
Read the report, "The Wall Street Banks Still Financing Private Prisons"
In our last newsletter, we noted that PAI director Kevin Connor was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition discussing the financial profiteers behind the Homestead detention center, a South Florida facility that is holding migrant children. (For more information, read our post on it)
Here’s a new May 27 *Miami Herald*article - also citing PAI - on resistance to the detention center and the power and financing behind it. Because of the growing scrutiny of its role in the Homestead child detention center, Caliburn, the detention center’s parent company, canceled its plans to go public.
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https://thinkprogress.org/stunning-hypocrisy-of-jp-morgan-jamie-dimon-on-climate-change-a3fd2ecfbbbd/
JPMorgan Chase and its chief executive Jamie Dimon claim to be strong supporters of climate action and the Paris climate accord. But in reality, they are “the world’s worst banker of climate change” according to a major new analysis.
Just this week, the company launched a wildly misleading attack on the Green New Deal, asserting that its goals of rapidly decarbonizing the U.S. economy “are not in the realm of the possible.”
According to a report by the Sierra Club and other leading environmental groups, however, JPMorgan Chase has provided a staggering $196 billion dollars in financing for fossil fuels and fossil fuel expansion since the December 2015 Paris Agreement, in which 200 nations unanimously agreed to leave most fossil fuels in the ground.
In Historic Paris Climate Deal, World Unanimously Agrees To Not Burn Most Fossil Fuels]
Just before the Paris deal, JPMorgan Chase signed a statement with Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and other big financial companies embracing the need for strong action. “Our institutions are committing significant resources toward financing climate solutions,” the statement read.
But since the Paris Agreement, those institutions have devoted $700 billion in financing to fossil fuel expansion, including coal mining, coal power, the tar sands, and oil drilling in remote locations like the Arctic — the very things that are destroying our livable climate the fastest.
In 2017,Dimon** also said he “absolutely” disagrees with President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the historic climate deal. However, this week’s report shows that JPMorgan Chase has since become the leading banker of fossil fuels and fossil fuel expansion.
Indeed, the banking report finds that the company is responsible for $1 out of every $10 of fossil fuel financing provided by the 33 major global banks it tracked. JPMorgan Chase’s funding of the top companies expanding fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure ranks in 68 percent higher than second place Citibank.
Both Dimon and JPMorgan Chase have spent this week trashing the Green New Deal,a non-binding resolution aimed at developing a plan consistent with the dire nature of current climate science.
Scientists say Ocasio-Cortez’s dire climate warning is spot on]
On Monday, Michael Cembalest, chief investment officer at JP Morgan Asset Management, published the company’s annual energy paper, titled, “Mountains and Molehills: Achievements and Distractions on the Road to Decarbonization.”
The paper criticizes the Green New Deal, claiming it “mandates zero net emissions for the US by 2030 for the entire energy sector (not just from electricity generation), and does so while phasing out nuclear power and relying heavily on carbon sequestration by forests.”
In fact, the Green New Deal is a “nonbinding” resolution, as its leading proponent, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), tweeted Wednesday.
The resolution calls for full decarbonization of the electricity sector alone by 2030, while calling for decarbonization of other sectors like transportation over the next decade “as much as is technologically feasible.”
Meanwhile, the resolution is completely silent on nuclear power, and carbon sequestration is one of many strategies offered.
Despite this, Cembalest concluded this week that the deal’s goals were “not a useful foundation for a serious policy discussion.”
Beto O’Rourke is right on climate, and the AP ‘fact-check’ is wrong]
Given JPMorgan Chase’s vast financing of fossil fuels, the world’s worst banker of climate change appears poorly positioned to criticize any resolution that takes seriously the Paris goal of keeping total warming “well below 2°C” (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
In an interview with CNN Tuesday, Dimon was dismissive of the Green New Deal, saying “I don’t spend much time worrying about things I can’t effectuate.” He also questioned the approach, “Can you focus on climate change in an intelligent way that doesn’t damage the economy?”
As an alternative, he offered up a carbon tax.
Dimon, of course, can’t “effectuate” a carbon tax. And the one thing the JPMorgan Chase executive could effectuate — stopping his bank from financing the destruction of the climate — he has chosen not to do.
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BAK
jpm319
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see MORGAN CHASE JP 2, jpm tag
capt 319
morgan stanley rating agency
jp morgan historical figure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_P._Chase chase bank named for him (sec of treas, tho no affiliation)
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https://thinkprogress.org/stunning-hypocrisy-of-jp-morgan-jamie-dimon-on-climate-change-a3fd2ecfbbbd/
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divest PIC 3/19
a host of efforts to push big banks to divest from private prisons, including by the Families Belong Together coalition led by MomsRising, the #BackersOfHate campaign, and Freedom to Thrive, notched a big victory when JPMorgan Chase recently announced that it will stop financing CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two biggest private prison corporations. LittleSis partnered on the research to identify private prison profiteers that was used by the Families Belong Together coalition and the #BackersOfHate campaign. Wells Fargo, another target of the campaign, has also indicated that it is pulling back from financing private prisons.
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crowdsource charity contest gamed?
winner kid rape?
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-more-than-me-charity-gamed-the-internet-and-hollywood-to-win-a-million-dollars
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pipelines
on October 16, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Crédit Agricole and 91 other global banks met in Washington, DC, to revise the Equator Principles, industry-led due diligence standards meant to prevent banks from supporting environmentally and socially harmful projects.
On the very same day, in a bitter irony, many of those same banks re-upped their support for Enbridge, the Canadian company behind the Line 3 tar sands pipeline, which tramples Indigenous rights and is flatly incompatible with the goals of the Paris climate agreement. They did so just days after the publication of a landmark United Nations report showing the desperate urgency of taking concrete steps to tackle the climate crisis. It’s as if the banks wanted to supply their own headline example of exactly why the Equator Principles are broken and in dire need of repair.
The current round of soul-searching around the Equator Principles dates back to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the Indigenous-led campaign calling out the banks behind the project. DAPL was a crisis for those banks, and it was a scandal for the Equator Principles Association. How did such an obviously flawed project pass muster?
In response to activist pressure, in 2017, the Equator Principles Association agreed to a revision process, including examining how the principles deal with the internationally accepted standard that projects cannot be built unless directly impacted Indigenous communities give their free, prior and informed consent. The Equator Principles currently ignore these principles in rich countries like the US — and ignore climate impacts everywhere.
It’s astonishing that the banks were discussing those revisions on exactly the same day that many of them reaffirmed their support for Enbridge, when the Line 3 pipeline — the company’s largest new investment — is in danger of becoming DAPL 2.0. In a clear echo of DAPL, Enbridge has failed to secure the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous communities impacted by Line 3: three Ojibwe tribes in the Minnesota portion of the pipeline’s proposed path remain staunchly opposed. There’s been a steady and growing drumbeat of Indigenous-led legal and direct action, up to and including peaceful civil disobedience.
Of course, all this comes on the heels of the historic report recently released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that describes food shortages, growing wildfires and massive coral reef destruction by 2040 unless we take immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
We urgently need to stop expanding and start phasing out fossil fuels to have any chance of meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Flying in the face of these facts, the Line 3 pipeline would increase extraction and burning of tar sands, one of the dirtiest forms of oil. Enbridge is a company going in exactly the wrong direction: Last year, it even sold off a huge wind farm to free up capital to build Line 3.
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Crédit Agricole are the lead banks behind two key Enbridge credit facilities, loans that act like giant credit cards for Enbridge to use as it pleases. They are crucial for Enbridge’s ability to build Line 3. When these loans are set to mature, banks have a choice: They can let them expire, or they can renew their support. One of Enbridge’s credit facilities was renewed recently, with another scheduled for renewal in December. At the beginning of October, Minnesota-based Native rights group Honor the Earth and a coalition of Indigenous and environmental organizations sent a letter to those three banks laying out the case against Line 3 and calling on them not to renew their support.
Because Enbridge is funding Line 3 from its general corporate coffers, the pipeline illustrates another fundamental shortcoming of the Equator Principles: Since the standards only cover direct finance for projects, Line 3 is outside of their scope, despite the project’s clear impacts on Indigenous rights and the climate. This is a litmus test for the current revision of the Equator Principles, which should cover projects like Line 3 if they’re going to be worth anything. As a start for companies sponsoring harmful projects, the Equator Principles evaluation should be triggered when these companies are up for credit renewals as well.
But JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Crédit Agricole can’t hide behind the revision of the Equator Principles. They should immediately end their support for Line 3 by dropping their financing for Enbridge, so long as the company is pushing forward this destructive project. The December credit renewal will serve as another test. This time they should make sure they pass it.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute, and originally published by Truthout
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Domhoff interlocks
https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/corporate_community.html
owever, to make sure Citigroup is not atypical, we can glance at another big and important bank in 2005, J.P. Morgan Chase. What makes this bank a little extra interesting is that J. P. Morgan was the infamous financier of 100 years ago whose financial companies were said to control dozens of corporations, and probably did (Chernow, 1990). As for the "Chase" part of the name, the Chase Manhattan Bank was the home base for the huge Rockefeller fortune from the 1930s until fairly recently. Sure enough, J.P. Morgan has links to 23 other companies, including double interlocks with Honeywell and Merck.
It's also noteworthy that two companies, Ford Motors and Yum! Brands, have interlocks with both Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, which of course means there are organizational links between those two large banks.
8 in both jpm and citi
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https://www.alternet.org/environment/jpmorgan-chase-ceo-jamie-dimon-needs-climate-change-education
Wall Street's biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, just posted record earnings. Its quarterly profit surged 35 percent to an all-time high. CEO Jamie Dimon's take-home pay soared to a stunning $141 million. But while Chase's shareholders and top executives make hay, the climate is reeling from increasing emissions from burning fossil fuels—a trend that Mr. Dimon seems happy to finance.
In one of his precious few public comments on climate change, Dimon condemned President Donald Trump for pulling out of the Paris Agreement last June. One year later, however, he seems fully on board with Trump's agenda to "unleash" fossil fuels and resurrect coal. Since Trump's election, Chase has poured more money than any other U.S. or European bank into the most planet-harming fossil fuels. From 2016 to 2017, Chase quadrupled its financing for tar sands and increased its coal mining funding by 2,100 percent.
Chase has publicly committed to supporting clean energy and has a policy to reduce its lending for coal mining (contradicted by its huge spike in financing for the sector last year). Yet when shareholders submitted a resolution for this year's annual general meeting calling on the company to disclose the risks associated with financing tar sands—one of the most carbon-intensive forms of oil—Chase rejected it by saying it would be like asking for a report on whether the bank offices had "carpeted floors."
This rejection is consistent with Dimon's apparent lack of concern over climate change. His recent 47-page letter to shareholders is filled with commentary on current hot-button political issues—spurring Andrew Ross Sorkin to speculate in the New York Times whether Dimon was contemplating a run for president in 2020. But on climate change—one of the most momentous public policy issues of our era—Dimon is almost completely silent, with just one mention in passing buried deep on page 44 of the shareholders' letter.
He made no mention that 2017 was the world's most expensive year on record for devastation from extreme weather events. No mention that last year, Chase's European competitors BNP Paribas and ING adopted policies that sharply restrict their lending to the worst fossil fuels. No mention that if we are to meet the Paris goals—which Dimon supposedly supports—we need to quickly stop expansion and start a rapid phaseout of these dangerous energy sources.
But at least climate change got to play a cameo this year: Dimon's previous ten letters to shareholders did not mention the phrase a single time. (The only allusion to climate change we can find in these letters—supposedly the second-most anticipated by investors after Warren Buffett's—is a reference in 2009 to Chase making money from trading carbon credits.)
Jamie Dimon is a strong CEO. He's famous for having a firm hand on Chase's tiller. So given that its great helmsman appears to be mostly ignorant of—or perhaps just doesn't care about—global warming, it's not surprising that Chase is the worst Wall Street funder of extreme fossil fuels. (Another relevant and deeply alarming aspect of Chase's executive leadership is that its longest-serving board member is none other than Lee R. Raymond, former CEO of ExxonMobil and one of the world's most notorious corporate climate denialists.)
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ref RU solani
https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-november-24-2017/ JP morgan sold bad morts, but said did not when make $, deneid when cost $, then forgave loans that led to zombie foreclosure sometimes years after. jamie dimond timed 100M$ to detroit so not conflict with zombie morts.
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https://www.ecowatch.com/banks-tar-sands-paris-agreement-2505848938.html
At the start of next week, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the U.N.'s negotiating body on climate change, will meet in Germany to discuss next steps after the historic agreement by 195 countries to curb global climate change to 1.5° Celsius, or 2° at most—an agreement whose only logical conclusion is that the world cannot afford expansion of the fossil fuel industry.
Various players in the financial industry have talked a big game on their commitments to the Paris agreement. But their business practices prove otherwise.
According to the new report Funding Tar Sands: Private Banks vs. the Paris Climate Agreement, in the first three quarters of 2017, major international banks have financed the extraction and transportation of tar sands at levels one and a half times higher than in the whole of 2016.
How can it be that in the last nine months, $32 billion has gone to an extreme fossil fuel whose development is flatly incompatible with meeting the goals of the Paris agreement?
Moreover, banks continue to stand behind their clients whose proposed tar sands projects, from Teck Resources' Frontier open-pit mine, to Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline, would further damn our climate and infringe upon indigenous rights.
When President Trump announced he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement, he drew a line: the Paris agreement's goal of limiting climate change to 1.5°C on one side, and his administration on the other.
On what side of the line do banks fall? Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said, "I absolutely disagree with the administration on this issue." And yet, JPMorgan Chase has increased its financing for tar sands this year, banking on major companies as they acquire new tar sands assets. Meanwhile, the bank's policy grade comes in at a disappointing D+. JPMorgan Chase's actions declare its support not for the Paris agreement and the world's desperate need to stymie climate change, but rather for the Trump administration's pro-fossil fuel agenda.
Financial institutions have shown that they are able to make significant steps toward aligning their businesses with the goals of the Paris agreement. Three weeks ago, BNP Paribas published a new policy restricting its financing for tar sands oil, among other extreme fossil fuels, in a move that the Wall Street Journal called "one of the clearest signs yet the banking industry is re-evaluating its relationship with the oil sector."
It's a relationship that direly needs reevaluation. Banks can't keep funding business as usual expansion of fossil fuels, especially when it comes to the carbon bomb that is the tar sands.
Like it or not, we can't meet the goals of the Paris agreement without the financial industry on board, especially as governments like Trump's loosen the reins on the fossil fuel industry. Banks must take the immediate step of exiting the tar sands sector. Independent of governments, these major multinational institutions must say they're on board with the Paris agreement—and then prove it.
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http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-jp-morgan-chase-cashing-private-prisons
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http://www.alternet.org/environment/your-bank-funding-climate-disaster
Less than two months ago, the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs signed an open letter to Donald Trump, urging him to keep the United States in the Paris climate accord, which provides “a framework to manage climate change” and achieve emissions reductions while also expanding markets for “clean, energy-efficient technologies which will generate jobs and economic growth.”
To be clear, it is highly commendable to see corporations willing to stick their necks out for a principle. However, in order for the actual practice of these banks to align with these public principles—and specifically, to align with the Paris Agreement ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees—the banking sector needs to address the billions they continue to pour into the most problematic fossil fuel sectors in the world.
In 2016 alone, that figure is $86.6 billion. That means the biggest global banks signed deals to the tune of $86.6 billion for the dirtiest of oils such as tar sands, Arctic, and ultra-deepwater oil; for coal and coal-fired power plants; and for liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals that drive fracking projects upstream and release massive amounts of methane, which is many times more potent than carbon dioxide.
As the top Western funder in this arena, JPMorgan Chase alone funneled more than $6.9 billion to extreme fossil fuels last year. Chase is number one in tar sands oil, Arctic oil, ultra-deepwater oil, coal power and LNG export. And it’s getting worse. In fact, Chase’s funding to extreme fossil fuels actually increased from 2015 to 2016, the first full year after the adoption of the Paris Climate Accord.
Simply put, financing extreme fossil fuels needs to end.
Banks need to accept that these activities are bankrupting all of us, economically, environmentally and ethically. The hard truth is that any bank that facilitates capital for extreme fossil fuels has no grounds to call itself socially responsible. The examples mount daily—tar sands pipelines face unified opposition from 122 Indigenous tribes and First Nations through the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion.
Less than two weeks after President Trump approved the Keystone XL pipeline, the Seattle City Council voted to divest from banks that finance TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline. In February, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told 17 banks to withdraw from financing the Dakota Access Pipeline. “The people of Standing Rock should not be threatened by the greed of a few wealthy oil industry executives.”
And it’s not just oil—the Rio Grande Valley, in South Texas, is facing three planned liquefied natural gas export terminals that would destroy the coastline, threaten children’s health, trample Indigenous cultural sites, and threaten the critical tourism economy.
There is a silver lining: 2016 saw an actual decrease in this extreme sector funding from the previous year. Over the past three years, global bank financing to more than 150 extreme fossil fuel companies went from $92.3 billion in 2014, up to $111.0 billion in 2015—and down to $86.6 billion last year. While positive news, it is far from enough. This decline needs to not only continue—it needs to accelerate. And banking institutions need to play their part. They can no longer profit in the shadows by financing projects like the Keystone XL, Dakotas Access or Trans Mountain pipelines.
The fact is that banks do not have strong policies in place to ensure this downward trend accelerates. The only sector that has even halfway-decent policy safeguards is coal mining, in which many U.S. and European banks have made commitments to move away from the sector. Thanks to a six year long campaign by activists across the country, Bank of America was the first bank to adopt a policy to reduce its funding for coal mining—and though Bank of America’s overall extreme fossil fuel investment has increased over the past three years, their coal mining numbers have dropped. Remarkably, Bank of America was the number one funder of coal mining just five years ago.
Without policy guardrails in other sectors, we could see extreme fossil fuel funding reverse direction — especially with the current administration in the U.S. issuing dangerous promises to “bring back coal” and “unleash fossil fuels.” The truth is, if we extract all the oil, gas, and coal in the fields and mines that are already in production, we would blow the world past the Paris Agreement’s 2 degrees goals on global warming. In fact, even if we stopped burning coal completely—today—currently operating oil and gas fields alone would tip us over the 1.5 degrees goal.
Expansion in the extreme fossil fuel sector will not only decimate our environment but will stunt our investment in emerging clean technologies. A January Department of Energy report made the facts clear: In 2016, the solar industry employed 373,807 Americans. Coal? 160,119.
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credit card debt repo whistleblower
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pro publ
ow banks handle delinquent accounts is largely shielded from public scrutiny. They aren’t required to disclose how many suits they file. And the role of debt buyers — companies that purchase accounts from banks at a steep discount, then try to collect — further obscures what happens to customers who don’t pay.
To generate a national estimate for Capital One’s suits, ProPublica looked to Encore Capital Corp., the nation’s biggest debt buyer, which voluntarily disclosed the number of suits it had filed nationally until 2010. That year, the company reported having filed 517,000 suits.
Capital One filed about 40 percent more collection suits than Encore in 2010 in the states for which ProPublica has data, indicating that the bank filed at least half a million suits that year nationally and potentially hundreds of thousands more. Our data showed even more suits in the two preceding years.
Capital One declined to respond to this comparison or provide a count of its suits.
After 2010, Encore Capital, under scrutiny for its litigation practices, stopped disclosing the number of suits it had filed. A spokesperson for Encore did not explain the decision beyond saying, “as we have diversified and grown as a company, we continue to evaluate what disclosures are appropriate for our investors.”
Because some banks sell their defaulted accounts to debt buyers like Encore, it is impossible to determine how many of their customers were ultimately sued. The three largest card issuers, Citibank, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase, have sold accounts to debt buyers in the past, according to court filings.
Capital One has also sold debt in the past. Stead, the bank’s spokeswoman, declined to provide detail on its debt-selling practices, but said the bank’s “strong preference” is to do its own collecting.
The lack of transparency leaves both borrowers and policymakers in the dark, said April Kuehnhoff, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “We need more data about debt-collection practices by both debt buyers and original creditors so that we can improve debt collection laws,” she said.
ProPublica contacted the six largest card issuers for this story, and all were guarded when it came to details about their approach to collections.
Citibank and Bank of America declined to respond to questions. Chase stopped filing lawsuits or selling its debt in 2011, after a whistleblower identified flaws in the bank’s collection practices. Those problems led to a consent agreement with regulators in 2013.
Discover filed the second-most suits, according to ProPublica’s analysis. It, too, declined to comment. Like Capital One, Discover’s volume of suits was also disproportionately large given the bank’s relatively small market share — Discover is the sixth-largest card issuer.
American Express, the fifth-largest issuer, filed relatively few suits. Spokeswoman Sonya Conway said the bank has not sold its debt in the past six years and had no plans to do so.
Federal regulators say they are alert to the potential for abuse through debt collection lawsuits, but it’s unclear that consumers should expect any more transparency in the near term.
Banks should “consider the risks of excessive litigation,” said Bryan Hubbard, spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The regulator has also publicly urged banks, when selling debts to buyers, to “consider selecting debt buyers who limit their use of litigation.”
While the agency says it closely monitors banks’ collection practices, that scrutiny does not extend to tracking the number of lawsuits each bank files. Hubbard said the agency does not consider the number of lawsuits “an effective indicator of bank safety and soundness or compliance.”
The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in the process of writing new rules for debt collection that are expected to cover a wide range of activities, including the filing of lawsuits. A spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the CFPB tracked the number of collection lawsuits filed by banks or planned to in the future.
A number of the bureau’s past enforcement actions have centered on debt collection litigation practices. It filed suit against the largest collections firm in Georgia, Frederick J. Hanna & Associates, which counts Capital One among its clients. Calling the firm a “debt collection lawsuit mill,” the CFPB alleged attorneys often filed suits with faulty information. The law firm disputes the allegations, and the suit is ongoing.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0308/JPMorgan-moves-to-divest-from-coal-at-least-partly
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What exactly does it mean for a big Wall Street bank to plead guilty to a serious crime? Right now, practically nothing.
But it will if California’s Santa Cruz County has any say.
First, some background.
Five giant banks – including Wall Street behemoths JPMorgan Chase and Citicorp – recently pleaded guilty to criminal felony charges that they rigged the world’s foreign-currency market for their own profit.
This wasn’t a small heist. We’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transactions every day.
The banks altered currency prices long enough for the banks to make winning bets before the prices snapped back to what they should have been.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch called it a “brazen display of collusion” that harmed “countless consumers, investors and institutions around the globe — from pension funds to major corporations, and including the banks’ own customers.”
The penalty? The banks have agreed to pay $5.5 billion. That may sound like a big chunk of change, but for a giant bank it’s the cost of doing business. In fact, the banks are likely to deduct the fines from their taxes as business costs.
The banks sound contrite. After all, they can’t have the public believe they’re outright crooks.
It’s “an embarrassment to our firm, and stands in stark contrast to Citi’s values,“ says Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat.
Values? Citigroup’s main value is to make as much money as possible. Corbat himself raked in $13 million last year.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon calls it "a great disappointment to us,” and says “we demand and expect better of our people.”
Expect better? If recent history is any guide – think of the bank’s notorious “London Whale” a few years ago, and, before that, the wild bets leading to the 2008 bailout – JPMorgan expects exactly this kind of behavior from its people.
Which helped Dimon rake in $20 million last year, as well as a $7.4 million cash bonus.
When real people plead guilty to felonies, they go to jail. But big banks aren’t people despite what the five Republican appointees to the Supreme Court say.
The executives who run these banks aren’t going to jail, either. Apologists say it’s not fair to jail bank executives because they don’t know what their rogue traders are up to.
Yet ex-convicts often suffer consequences beyond jail terms.
In many states they lose their right to vote. They can’t run for office or otherwise participate in the political process.
So why not take away the right of these convicted banks to participate in the political process, at least for some years? That would stop JPMorgan’s Dimon from lobbying Congress to roll back the Dodd-Frank act, as he’s been doing almost non-stop.
Why not also take away their right to pour money into politics? Wall Street banks have been among the biggest contributors to political campaigns. If they’re convicted of a felony, they should be barred from making any political contributions for at least ten years.
Real ex-convicts also have difficulty finding jobs. That’s because, rightly or wrongly, many people don’t want to hire them.
A strong case can be made that employers shouldn’t pay attention to criminal convictions of real people who need a fresh start, especially a job.
But giant banks that have committed felonies are something different. Why shouldn’t depositors and investors consider their past convictions?
Which brings us to Santa Cruz County.
The county’s board of supervisors just voted not to do business for five years with any of the five banks felons.
The county won’t use the banks’ investment services or buy their commercial paper, and will pull its money out of the banks to the extent it can.
“We have a sacred obligation to protect the public’s tax dollars and these banks can’t be trusted. Santa Cruz County should not be involved with those who rigged the world’s biggest financial markets,” says supervisor Ryan Coonerty.
The banks will hardly notice. Santa Cruz County’s portfolio is valued at about $650 million.
But what if every county, city, and state in America followed Santa Cruz County’s example, and held the big banks accountable for their felonies?
What if all of us taxpayers said, in effect, we’re not going to hire these convicted felons to handle our public finances? We don’t trust them.
That would hit these banks directly. They’d lose our business. Which might even cause them to clean up their acts.
There’s hope. Supervisor Coonerty says he’ll be contacting other local jurisdictions across the country, urging them to do what Santa Cruz County is doing.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/california-county-thats-leading-way-cutting-banks-out-its-economy
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prins yields to
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
By Ron Chernow
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This year, even though the Wall Street bosses have presided over a 30 percent drop in their banks' profits, they've extracted a 15 percent raise in overall bonus money, totaling a ridiculous $27 billion. That averages out to $165,000 in extra pay to each Wall Street banker. But averages deceive, for thousands of lower-level bankers are given a dab, while those up in the executive suites make off with the bulk of the bonus heist.
Michael Corbat, CEO of Citigroup, for example, didn't just grab a 15 percent increase in bonus pay, but nearly three times that. His total haul was $16 million. Then there's Jamie Dimon, boss of JPMorgan Chase. He had a really terrible year in 2013, forcing his shareholders to shell out some $22 billion in penalties for tallying up a long list of illegalities. But that didn't stop Jamie from taking a 74 percent hike in bonus money this year — he pulled in a cool $18.5 million.
In a time when the 90 percent majority of Americans see their income falling, you'd think Wall Street might show a bit of modesty
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AlterNet [1] / By Lynn Stuart Parramore [2]
Predator Banks Enter Brave New World of Epic Scams and Public Hasn’t Got a Clue
February 13, 2014 |
Wall Street watchers have been concerned for some time about the monopolizing trend among big banks. One of the most alarming developments in recent years is a buying spree in which megabanks have been gobbling up physical assets.
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has delved into this story in his characteristically colorful way, shining a light on how this particular activity took off, namely through an overlooked provision in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This arcane-sounding piece of Clinton-era legislation ranks high on the list of Very Bad Ideas coming out of Washington since the 1980s. It essentially overturned Depression-era regulations that had kept the banking sector under control and opened the door for commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies to merge their businesses.
The fine print of the bill also allowed commercial banks to dive into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally."
So what exactly classifies as “complementary” to financial activity? When the idea came up in Congress in 1999, JPMorgan’s Michael Patterson said it was something like American Express owning a lifestyle magazine that complemented its business. No biggie.
But in reality, it has meant pretty much everything. Like, for example, oil tankers and raw materials. The result is something the public never signed off on — banks getting their mitts on entire supply chains and industrial processes. Taibbi explains how this is going down:
“Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum.”
Recently, something rotten occurred in Denmark, as Goldman Sachs launched its bid to buy a 19 percent stake in the national electricity provider, a deal that would give it control of key management decisions. The streets erupted in protest as Danes (some carrying images of vampire squids) raged at the idea that government ministers could have invited an American investment bank to exert so much control over the state energy grid. The deal actually set off a crisis in the Danish government [3].
In California, citizens found out recently that big banks have been rigging prices in the physical business interests they own. JPMorgan Chase and Barclays are accused of manipulating the delivery of electricity in California and elsewhere. Last year, JPMorgan paid $410 million to settle allegations of power market manipulation in California to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Goldman Sachs, for its part, has come under scrutiny for allegedly delaying the delivery of metals from warehouses it owned so that it could manipulate prices (it has since offered to speed delivery [4]).
Banks not only own the supply chains, they also place bets on their activity in financial markets, such as buying commodities futures. The whole thing is a recipe for corruption and conflicts of interest. Regulators, who have doing precious little about the money laundering, bribery and other scams we already know about, have been slow to address these new problems, the scope of which may be very frightening indeed.
The financial crisis taught us that big banks have turned into dangerous companies that are not only too big to fail, but, as Attorney General Eric Holder openly admitted, too big to police. Their reach continues to extend into more areas of the economy, with little public debate. President Obama has surrounded himself with economic advisors who are not inclined to rein in the banks; some of the banks even participated in the dismantling of the laws that once protected American citizens from their predation.
A lot will depend on the ability of the regulators to adapt to the changes occurring in the banking industry. Wall Street is under pressure to get rid of some commodities assets amid growing awareness of their ability to muck around with the availability of supplies and prices. The Federal Reserve is moving toward tighter restrictions on bank roles in physical commodity markets, and has issued a request for public input on the matter...
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DN 12/27/13
energy manipulation, credit card usury?
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AlterNet [1] / By Steven Rosenfeld [2]
12 Ways JP Morgan Admitted It Ripped Off Americans to the Tune of Billions
November 20, 2013 |
Wall Street’s latest chapter in corporate accountability is hardly satisfying, even if it is a rare admission of wrongdoing from a major bank. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced a $13 billion settlement with J.P. Morgan for its rapacious role in the housing market bubble and collapse.
Beyond analyses showing that the government’s supposed largest fine ever might end up “closer to $2.74 billion [3],” and that $7 billion of it is tax deductible [4]—tantamount to America’s 138 million taxpayers [5] each giving a $50 bill to Morgan—the nation’s business press is filled with praise [6] for the bank turning a page.
No one should hold their breath waiting for the Justice Department to announce criminal charges against bank executives; even if Attorney General Eric Holder says the case it not closed. Instead, what Americans are left with is an odd legal creature—a so-called “Statement of Facts [7]”—describing Morgan’s greedy sins.
This declaration is not written in plain English. So here’s AlterNet’s translation of what Morgan said that it did, followed by the relevant legalese. This is as close to a corporate confession of greed and deceit as Americans get today.
- J.P. Morgan knew it had bad loans from the start.
J.P. Morgan made billions by buying high-interest mortgages and selling them as packages to investors, who expected solid returns. Inside Morgan, its contactors knew that they were buying loans that didn’t even meet the brokers’ standards.
“JPMorgan employees were informed by due diligence vendors that a number of the loans included in at least some of the loan pools that it purchased and subsequently securitized did not comply with the originators’ underwriting guidelines.”
- J.P. Morgan knew appraisers were inflating values.
To get a mortgage, lenders require an appraisal as part of a clearance process. Morgan knew appraisers were rubber-stamping home values that were absurdly high, but ignored it. The bigger the loan, the more profit in interest payments.
“A number of the properties securing the loans had appraised values that were higher than the values derived in due diligence testing from automated valuation models, broker price opinions or other valuation due diligence methods.”
- J.P. Morgan lied about these values to investors.
Their business was based on reselling bundles of loans, so they deliberately over-promised to investors and hid information that the loans would likely fail.
“JPMorgan represented to investors in various offering documents that loans in the securitized pools were originated “generally” in conformity with the loan originator’s underwriting guidelines.”
- When asked about bad loans, they said, ‘Don’t worry.”
When asked about bad loans in their budled investments, the bank said they were looking at mortages one-by-one and carefully certified their loans.
“Exceptions were made based on “compensating factors,” determined after “careful consideration” on a “case-by-case basis.”
- They were buying loans like sharks biting at bait.
J.P. Morgan went right to the worst mortgage mills and starting buying everything that they had written, which included very-high interest loans on home values that were overstated with unsupportable payments.
JPMorgan began the process of creating RMBS [residential mortgage backed securities] by purchasing pools of loans from lending institutions, such as Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., or WMC [Washington Mutual] Mortgage Corporation, that originated residential mortgages by making mortgage loans to individual borrowers.”[WMC collapsed and was taken over by the federal government in 2008].
- Their sales pitches were filled false assurances.
J.P. Morgan’s sales team, which included newly minted M.B.A. business school graduates working the phones and higher-ups at industry conferences armed with Powerpoint presentations, boasted of quality controls and vetting.
“JPMorgan salespeople marketed its due diligence process to investors through oral communications that were often scripted by internal sales memoranda, through presentations given at industry conferences, and to certain individual investors. In marketing materials, JPMorgan represented that the originators had a “solid underwriting platform,” and that JPMorgan was familiar with and approved the originators’ underwriting guidelines.”
- Meanwhile, Morgan knew it was buying bad loans.
Back at corporate headquarters, the auditors that Morgan hired to review the mortgages that they were buying found that a sizeable slice of them—from the originators like Countrywide—did not even meet the mortgage broker’s supposed standards, and lacked information showing borrowers could pay them back.
“JPMorgan’s due diligence vendors graded numerous loans in the samples as Event 3’s, meaning that, in the vendors’ judgment, they neither complied with the originators’underwriting guidelines nor had sufficient compensating factors, including in many instances because of missing documentation such as appraisals, or proof of income, employment or assets.”
- They dumped bad loans, en masse, into loan pools.
Executives ignored their auditors and threw the bad loans into the larger pot, as if that would make them go away, as if their solution was diluting its impact. When that didn’t work on an individual loan basis, they signed off on bad loans in bulk.
“JPMorgan directed that a number of the uncured Event 3 loans be “waived” into the pools facilitating the purchase of loan pools, which then went into JPMorgan inventory for securitization. In addition to waiving in some of the Event 3 loans on a case-by-case basis, some JPMorgan due diligence managers also ordered “bulk” waivers.”
- They had twice the bad loans as their standards allowed.
The bank’s internal standards allowed for up to 15 percent of their bundled loans to be risky. But Morgan’s auditors found that they had nearly double that figure. So they cooked their books, by re-grading those bad loans, from so-called “Event 3” to “Event 2” status, to make its portfolio look like it met the bank’s standards.
“From the first quarter of 2006 through the second quarter of 2007, of the 23,668 loans the vendor reviewed for JPMorgan, 6,238 of them, or 27 percent, were initially graded Event 3 loans and, according to the report, JPMorgan ultimately accepted or waived 3,238 of these Event 3 loans – 50 percent – to Event 2.”
- They met with Countywide, but kept buying bad loans.
Morgan auditors obviously knew that they had a very big problem on their hands and met with the slippery loan originators. But that did not stop other executives from buying bundles of bad loans—such as ones where borrowers made up their income on loan applications. Instead of approving individual mortgages, Morgan picked up its pace and approved these loan purchases in bulk.
“JPMorgan Managing Directors in due diligence, trading, and sales met with representatives of the originator to discuss the loans, then agreed to purchase two loan pools without reviewing those loan pools in their entirety as JPMorgan due diligence employees and managers had previously decided; waived a number of the stated income loans into the pools; purchased the pools; and subsequently securitized hundreds of millions of dollars of loans from those pools into one security.”
- They kept telling investors everything was peachy.
Even though this skullduggery, mismanagement and distortions was going on inside the bank’s offices and known to top Morgan executives, they said nothing and kept selling the bundles with bad loans to investors.
“None of this was disclosed to investors.”
- Other Wall Street giants did the exact same thing.
During the financial crisis brought by the collapse of the housing market, Morgan bought Bear Stearns, an investment bank, and Washington Mutual Bank. These banks did the exact same thing as Morgan; knowingly buying mortgages that never should have been written in the first place and ignoring auditors.
“Bear Stearns would purchase loans where there was a variance from the guidelines that the managers or other employees deemed acceptable. In addition, Bear Stearns completed bulk purchases of Alt-A loan pools even though the rate of loans with exceptions in the due diligence samples indicated that the un-sampled portion of a pool likely contained additional loans with exceptions.”
And so did Washington Mutual, which failed was closed by the government’s Office of Thrift Supervision in 2008.
“WaMu did not disclose to securitization investors in written offering materials the information from its internal reviews concerning instances of borrower fraud and misrepresentations regarding borrower credit, compliance, and property valuation, in the origination of loans, including as to loans that were sold into securitizations.”
These terse, matter-of-fact sentences from Department of Justice lawyers are what a corporate confession of massive greed and wrongdoing looks like today. It’s not very satisfying or reassuring to know that banks like Morgan preyed on the public—with predatory loans, cooked books, false sales pitches and no real effort to rein in abuses—because they were making money hand over fist.
While they partied on, the collapse of the housing market eviscerated the life savings of millions of people, as home values fell and still have not recovered. Meanwhile, the fact that apparently $7 billion of the settlement will be deductible from Morgan’s taxes is maddening. That’s equal to every American taxpayer handing Morgan CEO James Dimon a $50 bill—as if he’s not rich enough.
See more stories tagged with:
Housing market collapse [8],
housing crisis [9],
jp morgan [10],
wall street greed [11],
department of justice [12]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/economy/jp-morgans-corporate-crime-confession
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steven-rosenfeld
[3] http://www.salon.com/2013/11/20/jpmorgan%E2%80%99s_bait_and_switch_the_ballyhooed_settlement_is_just_a_scam/
[4] http://www.businessinsider.com/tax-deductible-of-jp-morgan-settlement-2013-11
[5] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_tax_payers_are_in_America
[6] http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/what-did-13-billion-just-buy-jp-morgan
[7] http://www.alternet.org/online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/111913jpmstatement.pdf
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/housing-market-collapse
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/housing-crisis-0
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jp-morgan
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wall-street-greed
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/department-justice
[13] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
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JPMorgan Agrees To Pay At Least $750 Million In Fines For 'Whale ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../jpmorgan-agrees-to-pay-at_n_3936427.htm...?
Sep 16, 2013 - The company recently said it would record more than $1.5 billion of additional legal ... The debacle took on the "London Whale" nickname, which hedge funds ... target="_hplink">alleged involvement in manipulating Libor, ...
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What Were Morgan Stanley Reps Doing at a Fossil Fuel Divestment Forum?
As it turns out, they were leading a workshop on how to move billions of dollars in public and nonprofit funds to sustainable investments.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/what-were-morgan-stanley-reps-doing-at-fossil-fuel-divestment-summit
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LittleSis Blog [1] / By Kevin Connor [2]
Eye Opening Chart: The JP Morgan $13-Billion Settlement in Perspective
October 24, 2013 |
It is quickly [3] becoming [4] clear [5] that JPMorgan’s tentative $13 billion settlement with the Department of Justice is not the massive, overly-punitive sanction that some press reports have made it out to be. The weaknesses in the deal may be explained in part by the fact that in arranging the settlement, JPMorgan was negotiating through the revolving door.
We have the names of the key players involved, thanks to the New York Times [6]: attorney general Eric Holder, associate attorney general Tony West, and deputy attorney general James Cole at the Justice Department, and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, general counsel Stephen Cutler, and outside counsel H. Rodgin Cohen on the other side of the negotiating table.
Stephen Cutler [7], JPMorgan’s general counsel, is the former director of the SEC’s enforcement division, a job which gave him experience and contacts that likely serve him well as he fends off legal challenges to the bank. His new position, of course, is much more financially lucrative: he earned over $5 million from JPMorgan in stock awards alone in 2012 (this excludes all cash compensation).
On the other side of the negotiating table (if there are two sides), Holder, Cole, and West are all former white collar defense attorneys. Holder [8] was a partner at Covington & Burling, where his clients included Bank of America and UBS. Cole [9] was a partner at Bryan Cave, where he was appointed as an independent consultant overseeing AIG’s disclosure and compliance practices (and appears to have failed spectacularly in this task).
And lastly, West [10] was a partner at Morrison & Foerster, where his clients in 2008 included none other than Washington Mutual. WaMu, of course, was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2008, and its mortgage lending practices are one major reason JPMorgan has such significant legal exposure. West’s disclosure form [11] lists WaMu as a client in 2008, but does not shed light on the nature of the services that he provided.
[12]
The DOJ negotiating team.
JPMorgan has been a client of each firm in recent years, though it is unclear if Holder, West, or Cole personally worked on matters for the bank while at their respective firms.*
This white collar defense work pays pretty well, if not at Cutler’s levels. According to financial disclosure forms, Holder received $3.32 million in partnership income from Covington in 2008, before being appointed AG the next year. Cole received $900,000 in 2010 from Bryan Cave, before joining the Justice Department. West received a relatively paltry $318,000 in partnership income from Morrison & Foerster in 2008.
Expect them to be making a lot more in a couple years, if they choose to return to the private sector. While their government salaries are much lower than their private sector compensation, their government service – and their involvement in deals like this one, sitting across the table from Jamie Dimon and negotiating a “tough” deal – has significantly bolstered their value in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, democracy is footing the bill.
*Coincidentally, when JPMorgan settled a $400 million suit with FERC over charges that its commodities unit had been manipulating energy markets earlier this year, it tapped lawyers at Holder’s old firm, Covington & Burling, and West’s old firm, Morrison & Foerster. But the fact that the lawyers at each firm were former FERC officials may go further in explaining why the bank did not suffer greater penalties in that case.
Update (10/23/2013 5:15pm): Tony West, the former WaMu attorney, was the DOJ official who negotiated the details of the settlement with Cutler, after Dimon and Holder got off the phone, according to the NYT [6]:
On a final call that Friday night — Mr. Cutler, Mr. West, Mr. Holder and Mr. Dimon all joined the call — the C.E.O. asked, “What will it take to get this done?”
Mr. Holder informed him that the government would not accept less than $13 billion. And with that, they had a tentative deal.
Mr. Holder and Mr. Dimon left Mr. Cutler and Mr. West to hash out the nuances.
Cole was not reported to be on that phone call, though he was in the room [13] when Dimon and his team met with Holder and his team in Washington in late September.
See more stories tagged with:
jp morgan [14],
eric holder [15],
jamie dimon [16],
department of justice [17]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/economy/eye-opening-chart-jp-morgan-13-billion-settlement-perspective
Links:
[1] http://blog.littlesis.org/
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kevin-connor-0
[3] http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/the-ridiculous-jamie-dimon-as-victim-meme-on-the-pending-jp-morgan-mortgage-settlement.html
[4] http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-attack-on-jpmorgan-20131021,0,6842276.story
[5] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/10/whats-wrong-with-fining-jpmorgan-chase-13-billion.html
[6] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/u-s-deal-with-jpmorgan-spurred-by-a-phone-call/?_r=0
[7] http://littlesis.org/person/1213/Stephen_M_Cutler
[8] http://littlesis.org/person/28664/Eric_H_Holder_Jr
[9] http://littlesis.org/person/37784/James_M_Cole
[10] http://littlesis.org/person/35081/Tony_West
[11] http://blog.littlesis.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/02481-Derek-A-West-NewEntrant278.pdf
[12] file:///C:\DATAleno\BRAINS\BRAINBK\webodec3_brain\Files\CC6C7AC2-09E9-5ACF-B97F-FBF7AF95529C\PersonalBrain Notes\downloadedimagefile0.png
[13] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/jpmorgan-urged-to-pay-more-in-mortgage-deal/
[14] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jp-morgan
[15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eric-holder-0
[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jamie-dimon-0
[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/department-justice
[18] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
---
When it comes to working the refs, no bank works harder than JPMorgan Chase.
The biggest U.S. bank by assets spent $8 million lobbying Congress on financial reform and other topics last year, outpacing every other large bank, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The second-biggest U.S. bank, Bank of America, spent just $3 million on lobbying last year, according to CRP data. That spending equates to the amount JPMorgan spent in the fourth quarter alone, MarketWatch reported on Thursday.
The second-biggest lobbying spender among banks last year was Wells Fargo, which spent $6.8 million, according to CRP. Banks are not the heaviest spenders on lobbying -- JPMorgan ranked only 47th in corporate lobbying spending last year. But industry groups like the Chamber of Commerce (which spent $136 million on lobbying last year) and the Business Roundtable ($14 million) do a lot of lobbying on their behalf.
JPMorgan's fourth-quarter lobbying was the heaviest since the CRP started keeping quarterly records back in 2008, MarketWatch points out. The bank consistently outspends rivals on lobbying, but it had an extra-special need to plead its case last year. The bank is knee-deep in several pickle barrels of regulatory trouble, starting with its $6 billion "London Whale" trading loss and including alleged manipulation of Libor and energy markets. And this doesn't include CEO Jamie Dimon's regularly scheduled crusade to proselytize/whine about the horrors of regulation.
JPMorgan lobbies so hard that some of its shareholders recently tried, at the bank's annual meeting in Tampa, to get the bank to disclose more about its lobbying efforts. That effort suffered a crushing defeat, getting just 8 percent of the vote of all the bank's shareholders. JPMorgan will go on lobbying to its heart's content, thank you very much.... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/jpmorgan-chase-lobbying_n_3366658.html
==
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/bank-lobbying-record-high_n_1106350.html
Big banks are on track to spend a record amount lobbying lawmakers this year.
The five banks that spend the most on lobbying have boosted their lobbying outlays by 12 percent in the first three quarters of 2011, compared to the same period last year, according to an analysis by the Charlotte Observer. Commercial banks comprising the banking industry have spent close to $47 million on lobbying so far this year, compared to $42 million at this time last year, the report finds.
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I was looking forward to my new job when I started working at a McDonald’s location in Pennsylvania in April, but I was disappointed to find out that in order to be paid, I would have to activate a JP Morgan Chase debit card with heavy fees attached.
I’m a young single mom. When I started my job at McDonald’s, I knew that I would only be making slightly more than minimum wage. I didn’t expect that the only way I would be paid would be on a debit card that would dock pay that I earned through lots of different fees. When I asked if McDonald’s could pay me through direct deposit to my local credit union, which doesn’t charge withdrawal fees, I was told that the debit card was the only option.
These cards come with a lot of fees: from fees for cash withdrawals to balance inquiries to lost or stolen cards to overdrafts and even inactivity fees. The federal government has helped reduce fees on credit and debit cards that most consumers use, but those protections don’t apply to the kinds of cards companies like McDonald's are using to pay employees. In the end, I feared that once all of the fees from getting my own hard-earned wages through this card were taken out, my pay would go below minimum wage.
I decided to leave my job at McDonald’s not because I didn't like the people, but because I think it's only fair that I get paid for all of my work there.
---
AlterNet [1] / By Andrew Gavin Marshall [2]
Meet the Elites Inside the $4 Trillion Global Powerhouse Bank of JP Morgan Chase
July 4, 2013 |
In May, JPMorgan Chase was listed as the largest bank in the world [3] with assets at roughly $4 trillion -- some $1.53 trillion of it in derivatives. This was reported a month after the announcement that the bank had posted a record first-quarter profit [4] of $6.5 billion.
Jamie Dimon, the bank's CEO and Chairman, has faced a host of scandals in relation to his management of the megabank, including the loss of roughly $6 billion through the London branch of the bank -- losses that Dimon was accused of hiding. A 300-page report [5] by the U.S. Senate, investigating the “creative accounting” of JPMorgan, noted that the bank “hid losses, did not share information with its regulators, and misled the public” in what one banking regulator referred to as [6] “make believe voodoo magic.” Stated bluntly in The New York Times [7], JPMorgan Chase, the largest derivatives dealer in the world, “is too big to regulate."
In the midst of the scandal, the bank faced a potential “revolt [8]” of its shareholders in a bid to strip Dimon of his dual role as CEO and Chairman. In confidential government reports which were leaked to The New York Times, the bank was accused of “manipulative schemes” which transformed “money-losing power plants into powerful profit centers” while executives made “false and misleading statements [9]” under oath.
Yet even in the midst of scandal, Jamie Dimon was praised in a storm of support by billionaires, corporate kingpins and media barons. Calling JPMorgan Chase “as good a bank as there is,” New York City mayor and billionaire media baron Michael Bloomberg went on to call Dimon [10] “a very smart, honest, great executive.” News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch praised Dimon [11] as “one of the smartest, toughest guys around,” while Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, referred to him as a “great leader” and said he had earned [12] the “right to hold both Chairman and CEO titles.” To top it off, billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, dubbed Dimon[13] “a fabulous banker.”
And the adoration goes all the way to the top rung. In 2009, The New York Times referred to [14] Jamie Dimon as “President Obama’s favorite banker.” In 2010, Obama told Bloomberg BusinessWeek that he didn’t “begrudge” bank CEOs like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs for their massive bonuses of $17 and $9 million, respectively. Obama explained: "I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.” The president added [15], “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen.”
In May of 2012, Obama rushed to Jamie Dimon’s defense in light of the financial scandals, stating that [16] Dimon was “one of the smartest bankers we got.” The Financial Times referred to Dimon [17] as “the last king of Wall Street.” And when finally faced with the decision to strip Dimon of his dual role as chairman and CEO, Obama’s "favorite banker" ended up winning [18] “a decisive victory" by maintaining both his roles.
But this is just the surface of JPMorgan Chase’s financial manipulations. The bank, in fact, was at the forefront of creating Credit Default Swaps (CDS), a key aspect of the derivatives market that led to the inflation and subsequent blowout of the housing bubble. JPMorgan developed these “financial instruments” as a type of insurance policy in 1994, allowing the bank to trade its debt (in the form of loans to corporations and governments) to third parties, thus handing off the risk and removing the debts from its accounts, which allowed it to make further loans. JPMorgan opened up the first CDS desk in New York in 1997, “a division that would eventually earn the name the Morgan Mafia [19] for the number of former members who went on to senior positions at global banks and hedge funds.” Back in 2003, the same Warren Buffet who would later praise Dimon referred to [20] credit default swaps as “financial weapons of mass destruction.”
JPMorgan was also at the forefront in the United States pushing for financial deregulation, particularly the slow-motion dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act that had been put in place in 1933 in response to the financial speculation which had helped spark the Great Depression. After hearing proposals from banks such as Citicorp, JP Morgan and Bankers Trust, which advocated the loosening of “restrictions” put in place by Glass-Steagall, the Federal Reserve Board in 1987 voted to ease many of the regulations. That same year, Alan Greenspan, who had previously been a director of JP Morgan, became the chairman of the Fed. In 1989, the Fed approved an application submitted by JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan, Citicorp and Bankers Trust to further reduce the regulations imposed by Glass-Steagall. In 1990, JP Morgan became [21] “the first bank to receive permission from the Federal Reserve to underwrite securities.”
Financial deregulation accelerated under President Clinton, much to the delight of Wall Street banks, which were then permitted to merge into megabanks, with JPMorgan merging with Chase Manhattan to form JPMorgan Chase. As early as 2006 and 2007, multiple megabanks were beginning to bet against [22] the housing market through various hedge funds, allowing them to make profits on the housing collapse they created. JPMorgan continued to sell mortgages as it bet against the mortgage market, passing on the risk while it hedged its bets to profit from the failure and losses of others. In 2011, the bank paid a $153 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle allegations[23] of “securities fraud.”
In the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, JPMorgan Chase became not only a major criminal, but also a prime beneficiary. In 2007, the global investment bank Bear Stearns was named by Fortune magazine [24] as the second “most admired” financial securities company in the United States, while Lehman Brothers was put in first place. As the financial crisis erupted, Bear Stearns executives “discovered” that they were “nearly out of cash” in March of 2008. The CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan Schwartz, made a phone call to Jamie Dimon -- JPMorgan Chase was the clearing agent for Bear Stearns -- asking for an overnight loan. Dimon, who also sat on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, turned there instead of providing the loan through his own bank. The president of the New York Fed – who was elected by the banks that own the New York Fed – was Timothy Geithner. Geithner began discussions with Bear Stearns, and the following morning he held a meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, where they agreed to an emergency loan for Bear Stearns, providing the funds [25] through JPMorgan Chase.
Over the following day, Geithner and Paulson informed Bear Stearns that it must sell the bank within days, and a deal was negotiated in which JPMorgan Chase would purchase Bear Stearns at $2 per share. Though Dimon had first refused to purchase the failed bank, he now engaged in negotiations with Geithner who won over Dimon [26] by guaranteeing $30 billion for JPMorgan to purchase the sunken bank. Long story short: through the New York Fed, the U.S. government purchased billions of dollars in bad debts made by Bear Stearns, including $16 billion in credit default swaps that were downgraded to “junk” assets, while JPMorgan Chase acquired $360 billion in Bear Stearns assets [27] with little or no risk.
With the purchase of Bear Stearns facilitated by the New York Fed, and for the benefit of JPMorgan, Geithner continued in his role as willing servant to the banks who had elected him as president. Then, in September of 2008 when the insurance conglomerate American International Group (AIG) plunged into crisis and sought support from the government, the Fed and Treasury initially refused. AIG turned to JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, who went to the government to pressure for state support. The New York Fed, with Geithner at the helm, again organized a secret bailout of the institution, valued at $85 billion [28]. In October, the government added an extra $38 billion to the AIG bailout, and the New York Fed provided a further $40 billion in November. Overall, U.S. taxpayers bailed out [29] the insurance giant with $150 billion.
Because many banks kept junk assets with AIG which didn’t affect its balance sheets, the insurance giant was allowed to continue making risky loans. Meanwhile, the New York Fed, noted Bloomberg journalist David Reilly, acted as “a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank,” and as a “quasi-governmental institution [which] isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests.” The AIG bailout, wrote Reilly, revealed what could be described as a “secret banking cabal [30].” Through AIG, bailout funds went to American, French, German, British, Swiss, Dutch and even Canadian banks. Goldman Sachs received over $12 billion, and billions also went [31] to Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase.
JPMorgan Chase was using bailout money from the government to purchase other banks and companies. As one executive at the bankcommented [32] in regards to a $25 billion bailout from the government, “I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment.” The banks repaid the bailout loans from other bailout funds they got from government, siphoning off taxpayer moneyback and forth [33] and rewarding them for their risky behavior. One university study noted that banks with political access – whether through lobbying efforts or board membership on the Fed – were more likely to get bailout funds, and in bigger numbers, than other banks. Notably among the most politically connected [34] banks were Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
According to a 2012 study by the International Monetary Fund and Bloomberg magazine, JPMorgan Chase continues to receive government support far beyond the bailouts, as it is a major recipient of corporate welfare and state subsidies. In fact, according to the study, the biggest bank in the world gets roughly $14 billion per year [35] in state subsidies and welfare, largely helping “the bank pay big salaries and bonuses.”
The Biggest and Most Connected Bank
Not only is JPMorgan Chase the biggest bank in the world with over $4 trillion in assets, but its power and influence extends far beyond financial matters. It is a major political force in the world, highly integrated within the network of global elites who make up the plutocratic ruling class. As the subject of study for the Global Power Project, I examined 55 people at JPMorgan Chase, including all members of the executive committee, the board of directors and the international advisory council.
Of the 55 individuals examined at the bank, a total of 13 (or roughly 24%) of the individuals were either members or held leadership positions (previously or presently) with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR has been at the heart of the foreign-policy elite of the United States since it was created in 1921. Further, a total of eight JPMorgan officials held leadership positions in the World Economic Forum, the second most represented institutional affiliation of the bank. Holding yearly conferences that bring together thousands of participants from elite financial, corporate, political, cultural, media and other institutions, the WEF is one of the principal forums for the global elite, with JPMorgan operating right there at the center.
The next most represented institution is the Trilateral Commission, with 5 individuals at JPMorgan Chase holding membership in the international think tank – or “global policy group” – uniting elites from North America, Western Europe and Japan (and now also including China, India, and other Pacific-rim nations). The Trilateral Commission itself was founded in 1973 by the CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank – which later merged into JPMorgan Chase – David Rockefeller.
In descending order, the other most highly represented institutions having cross membership between leadership positions with JPMorgan Chase are: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (4), the Business Council (4), Citigroup (4), Bilderberg (4), the Group of Thirty (4), Sara Lee Corporation (3), Harvard (3), American Express (3), American International Group (3), the Business Roundtable (3), Rolls Royce (3), the Center for Strategic and International Studies – CSIS (3), the European Round Table of Industrialists (3), the Peterson Institute for International Economics (2), the U.S.-China Business Council (2), and the National Petroleum Council (2).
Institutions which hold two individual cross leadership positions with JPMorgan Chase include: the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the University of Chicago, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., General Electric, Asia Business Council, the U.S. President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Coca-Cola Company, National Bank of Kuwait Advisory Board, INSEAD, China-United States Exchange Foundation, Mitsubishi, the Carlyle Group, and the IMF.
Meet the Elites at JPMorgan Chase
It’s worth taking a look at some specific individuals who serve in a leadership and/or advisory capacity to JPMorgan Chase to get an idea of the composition of some of these global plutocrats.
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, sits on the boards of directors of: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Harvard Business School, and Catalyst. He is a Trustee of the New York University School of Medicine, a member of the Executive Committee of the Business Council, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, a member of the Financial Services Forum, and a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Members of the board of JPMorgan Chase include James A. Bell, former President of Boeing and a current member of the board of Dow Chemical; Crandall C. Bowles, a director of Deere & Company and the Sara Lee Corporation, a former director of Wachovia, a Trustee of the Brookings Institution, on the Governing Board of the Wilderness Society, and a member of the Business Council and the Economic Club of New York. Other JPM board members include Stephen B. Burke, CEO of NBC Universal and Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation; David M. Cote, the Chairman and CEO of Honeywell International who sits on President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, on the advisory panel to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), and is a member of the Trilateral Commission; and Lee Raymond, director of the Business Council for International Understanding, who sits on the advisory panel to KKR, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and former Chairman of the National Petroleum Council as well as former Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, from which he retired in 2006 with a compensation package [36] of $398 million.
JPMorgan Chase has an International Council which provides advice to the bank’s leadership on economic, political and social trends across various regions and around the world. The International Council is chaired by Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK, who also sits as an adviser to Zurich Financial. The Council includes Khalid A. Al-Falih, the President and CEO of Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabian Oil Company), the world’s largest oil company, who also sits on the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is also on JPMorgan’s International Council, and sits as Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Annan is also on the boards of the United Nations Foundation, the World Economic Forum, and he is a member of the Global Board of Advisors of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Council includes the third richest man in Mexico, Alberto Bailléres, as well as the Chairman and CEO of Telecom Italia, Franco Bernabé, who was the former CEO of Eni, one of the world’s largest oil companies (and Italy’s largest corporation), as well as the former Vice Chairman of Rothschild Europe. Bernabé sits on the board of PetroChina, China’s largest oil company. Bernabé is also a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists (a group of roughly 50 major European CEOs who directly advocate and work with EU political leaders in designing and implementing policy), he was a former Advisory Board member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the board of FIAT, and is actively a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Meetings.
Martin Feldstein, a prominent Economics professor at Harvard and the President Emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research, is another member of the International Council. Feldstein was the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to President Ronald Reagan and sat on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (an “independent” group that advises the president on intelligence matters) under President George W. Bush (from 2007-2009). President Obama appointed Feldstein to the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and he also sits on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a participant in Bilderberg Meetings, and is a member of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait.
Gao Xi-Qing is the Vice Chairman, President and Chief Investment Officer of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), China’s sovereign investment fund. He was referred to by the Atlantic [37] as “the man who oversees $200 billion of China’s $2 trillion in dollar holdings.” Another notable Chinese member of the International Council is Tung Chee Hwa, the former Chief Executive and President of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, a core policy-making institution in the government of Hong Kong. Tung Chee Hwa is also the Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a major political advisory group in the People’s Republic of China, once chaired by Mao Zedong. Tung Chee Hwa as well is the founder and Chairman of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, and a former member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Carla A. Hills is the only woman on the JPMorgan International Council, and is Chairman and CEO of Hills & Company International, a global consulting firm. She was the former United States Trade Representative in the George H.W. Bush administration, where she was the primary negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She is also the Co-Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, and sits on the International Boards of Rolls Royce and the Coca-Cola Company, as well as sitting on the board of directors of Gilead Sciences. Hills is a Counselor and Trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a major American think tank where she also sits as Co-Chair of the Advisory Board (alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission). In addition, Hills is a member of the Executive Committee of both the Trilateral Commission and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, as well as sitting on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the US-China Business Council, as Chair of the National Committee on US-China Relations, and Chair of the Inter-American Dialogue.
Henry Kissinger – former U.S. Secretary of State, National Security Adviser to President Richard Nixon, and Secretary of State to President Ford – also sits on the International Council of JPMorgan. Kissinger was a former adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, who recruited Kissinger as director of the Special Studies Project of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in the 1950s. Kissinger was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1977-1981, is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a former member of the Steering Committee and continuous participant in the Bilderberg Meetings, and is founder and chair of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting and advisory firm. Kissinger Chaired the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America during the Reagan administration, which provided justification for Reagan’s wars in Central America, and he was also a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1984-1990, advising both Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski, Kissinger was a member of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy of the National Security Council and Defense Department, established in the late 1980s to develop a long-term strategy for the United States in the world. Kissinger has also been a member of the Defense Policy Board, providing “independent” advice to the Pentagon leadership on matters of foreign policy, from 2001 to the present, for both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Kissinger is also a Counselor and Trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Honorary Governor of the Foreign Policy Association, an Honorary Member of the International Olympic Committee, an adviser to the board of directors of American Express, and is a Trustee Emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition, Kissinger is a director of the International Rescue Committee, the Atlantic Institute, and is on the advisory board of the RAND Center for Global Risk and Security, as well as Honorary Chairman of the China-United States Exchange Foundation.
Mustafa V. Koc is also a member of the International Council, and is Chairman of Koc Holding AS, Turkey’s largest multinational corporation. He also sits on the International Advisory Board of Rolls Royce, the Global Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Meetings, a former member of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait, and is Honorary Chairman of the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s High Advisory Council.
Gérard Mestrallet is the Chairman and CEO of GDF Suez, one of the largest energy conglomerates in the world, and is on the board of Suez Environment (one of the major water privatization companies in the world), and also sits on the supervisory board of AXA, a major global French financial conglomerate. He is also an advisory board member of Siemens, and is a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists and the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.
John S. Watson is the Chairman and CEO of Chevron Corporation. He is on the board of the American Petroleum Institute and is a member of the National Petroleum Council, the Business Roundtable, the Business Council, the American Society of Corporate Executives, and the Chancellor’s Board of Advisors of the University of California Davis. He is also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.
The Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, Jacob A. Frenkel, is Chairman and CEO of the Group of Thirty, and a member of the International Council. He is also a former Vice Chairman of American International Group (from 2004 to 2009, when it was rescued with the massive government bailout); the former Chairman of Merrill Lynch International (from 2000 to 2004), and the former Governor of the Bank of Israel (from 1991 to 2000). Frenkel was an Economic Counselor and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund (from 1987 to 1991) and prior to that he was the David Rockefeller Professor of International Economics at the University of Chicago (from 1973 to 1987). In addition, Frenkel is the former Editor of the Journal of Political Economy, former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank, and a former member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations. Frenkel is currently a member of the board of directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a member of the Trilateral Commission, member of the International Advisory Council of the China Development Bank, member of the board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, member of the Economic Advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, member of the Council for the United States and Italy, member of the Investment Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of Turkey, and sits on the board of Loews Corporation.
To sum: it should be clear, from the evidence, that the leadership of JPMorgan Chase is not an isolated group of individuals involved in finance and exclusively relegated to the banking world, but a highly networked and influential group consisting of central figures in the global plutocracy – referred to as the "Transnational Capitalist Class" – with significant economic, social and political power. To refer to JPMorgan Chase simply as "a bank" is like referring to the United States as just "a country." A geopolitical force unto itself, and a conglomerate embedded within a transnational network of elite institutions and individuals, JPMorgan Chase goes beyond the financial indicators. Put simply, it is one of the most powerful banks in the world.
An earlier version of this article first appeared on Occupy.com [38]
See more stories tagged with:
bank [39],
jpmorgan chase [40],
International Council [41],
Suez Environment [42],
bankers [43],
ceo [44],
National bank [45],
world economic forum [46],
Inter-American Developmental Bnak [47],
economy [48]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/economy/jp-morgan-chase-bank-4-trillion-global-powerhouse-meet-elites-charge
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/andrew-gavin-marshall
[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-13/it-s-official-sort-of-jpmorgan-is-world-s-biggest-bank.html
[4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22126115
[5] http://www.news.com.au/world-news/ceo-jamie-dimon-hid-billions-in-losses/story-fndir2ev-12265986846120
[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/14/jpmorgan-senate-investigation-london-whale
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/business/jpmorgans-follies-for-all-to-see-in-a-senate-report.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
[8] http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/05/07/the-revolt-against-jamie-dimon/
[9] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/jpmorgan-caught-in-swirl-of-regulatory-woes/
[10] http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/05/31/mayor-bloomberg-likes-jamie-dimon-a-lot-more-than-big-sodas/
[11] http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/05/10/rupert-murdoch-defends-jamie-dimons-dual-role-at-j-p-morgan/
[12] http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/05/08/jamie-dimon-fan-club-welcomes-jack-welch/
[13] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/07/warren_buffett_didnt_want_jami.html
[14] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/business/19dimon.html?pagewanted=all
[15] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKGZkktzkAlA
[16] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/15/obama-has-up-to-1-million-in-jpmorgan-account/
[17] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d1890714-bd6f-11e2-890a-00144feab7de.html#axzz2UoVMGbl4
[18] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/51ce0cb2-c21b-11e2-ab66-00144feab7de.html#axzz2UoVMGbl4
[19] http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/09/26/the-monster-that-ate-wall-street.html
[20] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2817995.stm
[21] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html
[22] http://www.npr.org/2011/05/02/135846486/how-some-made-millions-betting-against-the-market
[23] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/jpmorgan-pays-153-million-to-settle-mortgage-case/
[24] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2007/industries/industry_52.html
[25] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182740622102431.html
[26] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aDNaFtVZV4ws
[27] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-01/fed-s-maiden-lane-made-taxpayers-junk-bond-buyers-without-congress-knowing.html
[28] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/17insure.html?hp
[29] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/business/economy/11aig.html
[30] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-01-28/secret-banking-cabal-emerges-from-aig-shadows-david-reilly.html
[31] http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/03/german_and_fren.html
[32] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/25nocera.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
[33] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/09/bank-tarp_n_1335006.html
[34] http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/21/banks-study-idUSN2124009320091221
[35] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-18/dear-mr-dimon-is-your-bank-getting-corporate-welfare-.html
[36] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/business/13exxon.html
[37] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/12/be-nice-to-the-countries-that-lend-you-money/307148/
[38] http://occupy.com
[39] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bank-0
[40] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jpmorgan-chase-0
[41] http://www.alternet.org/tags/international-council
[42] http://www.alternet.org/tags/suez-environment
[43] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bankers-0
[44] http://www.alternet.org/tags/ceo
[45] http://www.alternet.org/tags/national-bank
[46] http://www.alternet.org/tags/world-economic-forum
[47] http://www.alternet.org/tags/inter-american-developmental-bnak
[48] http://www.alternet.org/tags/economy-0
[49] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
==
bigthink:
In this ongoing series, I talk with thought leaders about ideas in my book Nature's Fortune and trends in the environmental movement.
Next in the series is my conversation with Matt Arnold, Managing Director and Head of the Office of Environmental Affairs, JPMorgan Chase.
Mark Tercek: I moved from Wall Street to the conservation world. You’ve gone the other way, from World Resources Institute (WRI) to JPMorgan Chase. What is an environmentalist doing on Wall Street?
Matt Arnold: Being an environmentalist! JPMorgan Chase presents a huge platform for advancing environmental outcomes. Of all the jobs I have had—the EPA, starting an NGO, WRI, being a consultant—none has had greater potential to protect the environment.
Our business is to provide financial services to people and companies, to lend them money and arrange capital so they can achieve their goals: buying a house, building a factory, drilling a well or opening a small business. So why not protecting forests or recovering fisheries or restoring wetlands?
That’s our challenge: to figure out how to invest a lot of money—billions, not millions—in conservation.
Mark Tercek: In Nature's Fortune, I argue that investments in nature can produce big returns for people, businesses and governments. What role do you see for JPMorgan in encouraging such investments?
Matt Arnold: Let’s be clear what we’re talking about investing in. JPMorgan has provided over $5 billion in capital to the clean tech industries in each of the last few years—mostly for renewable energy. We have billions invested in green buildings, including our own global headquarters. We also spend a lot of our time working with our clients in sectors where there are sensitive environmental issues to navigate. This is one of the main areas I focus on. Our business views us as trusted advisors—not in the provision of finance—but in the provision of guidance on environmental performance. This is good risk management—but it’s also just good business.
What we have not done—but are planning to do—is to invest directly in nature. We are looking to finance projects where the primary objective is to improve the environment. We are working with partners in the conservation community to design financing techniques that will enable a much larger amount of private capital to be put to work for nature. If we get it right, we’ll deliver both returns for investors and sustainable natural resource management and conservation at a commercial scale.
Mark Tercek: You and I are clearly in agreement that businesses can be constructive allies for the environment. What can we do to fully leverage this potential?
Matt Arnold: I used to think all we needed was for CEOs to see a business opportunity from being green and we could all go home. It’s more complicated than that.
We are all heavily influenced by pre-conceived notions of how “business” or “environmentalists” behave and what they are seeking to do. You need to get past those stereotypes. Most people are honest and caring, and want cleaner water, air and healthy habitat for all critters. Most people want an economy that can thrive—without growth coming at the expense of nature or communities. Most people want to make a difference and work to improve our world. There is a role for all of us.
I believe the level of communication required to understand different perspectives and come to mutual agreement on shared objectives is much higher than people think. Business can and is making progress and innovating. But I also believe we need regulation to set a floor and provide the right signals—to keep business moving in the right direction, at an appropriate level of performance.
And finally, I often think people are not ambitious enough when setting their goals. If your project or partnership is successful, will it make a big difference to the environment? If not, why bother? Do something else.
Mark Tercek: In your view, what is the environmental movement doing well? How can we improve?
Matt Arnold: If by the environmental movement we’re talking about NGOs, I think they continue to point out problems well. I think they are excellent at creating a sense of urgency among their base.
But I think they need help communicating across the aisle. Words like sustainability and global warming still alienate large influential communities who could get very enthusiastic about clean water, clean energy, energy efficiency and wildlife habitat. I also think NGOs need a much stronger tilt toward solutions. I hold you at The Nature Conservancy in very high regard there. You all get things done.
Mark Tercek: What advice do you have for environmental organizations as we seek out collaborations with the private sector? How can we get more done together?
Matt Arnold: Be inclusive. Get beyond unexamined assumptions. Understand the way your partners work and the tools they have. Be very ambitious.
Mark Tercek: If you had my job leading the Conservancy, what would you make your top priorities?
Matt Arnold: I would continue to have science guide the organization’s understanding of the survival threats to eco-systems from climate change, and factor that into a public priority setting process. The context in which we work is very dynamic and the Conservancy’s work needs to take account of and reflect that dynamism. I would be vigilant about priorities and creating scale of impact by focusing on a set of highly critical and protectable places. I would make sure we build and support a thriving team at all levels (staff, board, funders) that can work effectively with a diverse set of partners. And I would fill our project pipeline with ten times as much work as we had resources for, to push us to grow and get more done.
Matt is the Head of the Office of Environmental Affairs at JPMorgan Chase and leads the firm's efforts to be a leader among financial services companies in protecting the environment while enhancing business success. The team develops environmental strategy, policy and guidance across JPMorgan Chase’s businesses, supports clients to identify and mitigate environmental risk, and enhances environmental outcomes throughout the firm's operations.
Prior to Joining JPMorgan Chase, Matt was Principal and lead of Sustainable Business Solutions at PwC. While at PwC, he helped clients achieve business success from their sustainability strategies and investments. He focused his team to deliver solutions that targeted revenue growth, cost reduction and risk mitigation in industrial, financial, airline, food and consumer product companies.
Matt was co-founder of Sustainable Finance Ltd. which helped financial services companies to develop sustainability strategy, manage environmental and social risk and to identify environmentally superior investment opportunities. His clients included commercial and investment banks, insurers, real estate companies, industrial products and development banks. Sustainable Finance was acquired by PwC in December 2008.
Matt was COO at the World Resources Institute, a sustainable development Think Tank. He held marketing positions with IBM, investment banking at Merrill Lynch, and in business development with Sante Fe trading, Hong Kong. Matt founded the Management Institute for Environment and Business which was a pioneer in presenting environmental challenges as business opportunities to companies and business schools.
Matt holds an AB degree in Psychobiology from Harvard College, an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
==
propub
Exec Who Allegedly Enabled Fraud Runs Chase’s Effort to Compensate Foreclosure Victims
An executive who the Justice Department says facilitated a scheme to defraud Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is now spearheading JPMorgan Chase's role in the government's program to compensate victims of the big banks' abusive foreclosure practices.
The executive, Rebecca Mairone, worked at Countrywide and Bank of America from 2006 until earlier this year, when she left for JPMorgan Chase, according to her LinkedIn profile.
In a lawsuit filed last month in federal court in New York, Justice Department attorneys allege that Countrywide, which was bought by Bank of America in 2008, perpetrated a two-year scam to foist shoddy home loans on Fannie and Freddie. Neither Mairone nor any other individuals are named as defendants in the civil suit, and no criminal charges have been filed against her or anyone else in connection with the alleged misconduct. But Mairone is one of two bank officials cited in the suit as having repeatedly ignored warnings about the "Hustle," as the alleged scheme was called inside the company, and she prohibited employees from circulating some of those warnings outside their division.
Mairone was chief operating officer of the Countrywide lending division that allegedly carried out the "Hustle." She took the helm of JPMorgan Chase's involvement in the Independent Foreclosure Review this summer, according to a former Chase employee.
---
http://www.propublica.org/article/jpmorgans-connections-to-the-house-finance-committee
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is on Capitol Hill again today, this time to talk to the House Financial Services committee about the bank's recent multibillion-dollar trading loss. According to his prepared testimony, Dimon plans to deliver basically the same remarks he gave the Senate banking committee last week, apologizing but giving few details.
His Senate hearing was hardly a grilling; senators mostly praised him for his "emphasis on continuous quality improvement," in the words of Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C.
As we charted last week, JPMorgan happens to have plenty of connections to the Senate committee. The House committee where Dimon is appearing today has its own ties to the bank. Congressmen and staff from the committee have gone to JPMorgan and its lobbying firms. Members have also gotten hefty campaign contributions from the bank's PACs and employees.
The House Connections
JPMorgan has two in-house lobbyists with connections to the House Financial Services committee.
Rick Lazio joined JP Morgan in 2004 as chief of government relations. He previously served as a congressman from New York from 1993-2000, and sat on the committee.
Tom Koonce is a lobbyist for JP Morgan and formerly a legislative director for Brad Miller, D-N.C., who sits on the committee.
There are also three former congressional staffers with committee ties at firms currently lobbying for JPMorgan:
Collins Lionel is a lobbyist at Jones, Walker et al., and a former staff member on the committee. JPMorgan hired the firm this year.
Nicholas Leibham, who works JPMorgan lobbying firm K&L Gates, was formerly an aide to Gary L. Ackerman, D-N.Y., another committee member.
Bart Gordon also works at K&L Gates. He's a former Democratic congressman from Tennessee who, back in the 1980s, sat on the committee.
Data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics also shows how representatives on the committee have benefited from the generosity of JPMorgan's employees and PACs.
In the 2012 election cycle, JPMorgan's PACs and employees have so far given $168,000 to members of the committee. About 80 percent of that came from one of the bank's PACs.
JPMorgan's PAC and employees have been the second-largest contributors to committee chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., since 1993, donating a total of $119,000 to the congressman's campaigns — $11,000 so far this election cycle. (These numbers don't include contributions to Super PACs or other outside groups.)
The committee's vice-chair, Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, has received a relatively modest $50,000 from JPMorgan since 2003. Overall, commercial banks have been his largest campaign contributor.
Other big Republican career recipients include Steve Stivers of Ohio, who has only served since 2010 but has already received more than $70,000.
On the Democratic side, JPMorgan's PAC and employees have given ranking member Barney Frank, D-Mass., $84,500 since 1989, making them his 4th biggest donor overall.
JPMorgan is number one for Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., with more than $100,000 since 1993.
Despite the hearings, neither the House nor Senate is actually conducting investigatons of JPMorgan's losses. But the Department of Justice is, along with five of JPMorgan's regulators — the FDIC, SEC, CFTC, OCC and the Fed. Lest you find that load of government acronyms as bewildering as Dimon said he did, we've also laid out their various investigations, and in a few cases, their own JP Morgan connections.
The SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into how JPMorgan disclosed risks to shareholders. SEC chairman Mary Schapiro outlined in testimony to the House today the various kinds of disclosure the SEC can target, without going into details on JPMorgan.
JPMorgan has two former SEC enforcement heads working for them now: the company's general counsel is Steven Cutler, who headed enforcement at the SEC from 2001 to 2005. They have also reportedly retained William McLucas from an outside law firm, another SEC enforcement director who spent two decades at the agency.
The CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is flexing new muscles gained from the Dodd-Frank financial reform. According to the Wall Street Journal, they are subpoenaing internal bank emails to determine if JPMorgan officials made deceptive statements — something that could constitute fraud or manipulation of derivatives market. The CFTC has never brought charges under the new rules, which went into effect last year.
The OCC
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency director's testimony for today echoes what he told the Senate earlier this month. The agency is looking at JPMorgan's risk-management strategy leading up to the losses, and reviewing the OCC's own oversight of the bank.
As ProPublica's Jesse Eisinger wrote recently, this is also something of a test for the OCC under its new commissioner Thomas Curry. The agency has had a reputation for favoring light regulation — including a watered-down version of the Volcker Rule, a Dodd-Frank ban on proprietary trading that some say would stop trades like the one that led to JP Morgan's loss when it goes into effect. Curry cautioned in his testimony for today that the OCC hadn't determined whether JP Morgan's trade would have been banned under Volcker.
The Fed
In his testimony, the legal counsel of the Federal Reserve said that the agency was still looking, but had not yet turned up any evidence of weak risk controls at JPMorgan.
Jamie Dimon sits on the board of the New York Federal Reserve — something that's prompted a proposed bill from Democratic senators that would ban officials of banks that can receive loans from the Fed from serving on any of its boards. JPMorgan and 17 other banks whose execs served on regional Fed boards got emergency loans from the Fed between 2007 and 2009. A government report found no evidence of conflict of interest from the arrangement, but did raise the concern of "reputational risks" from the appearance of one.
The FDIC
The Federal Deposit Insurance Commission chair testified that the FDIC has added extra staff and has "met daily" with JPMorgan employees to take a broader look at the company's risk management beyond the unit that made the losing trades, according to their prepared testimony.
A recent appointee to the board of the FDIC, Jeremiah Norton, is a former executive at JPMorgan Securities. Before that, he was an aide to Ed Royce, R-Calif., who sits on the House finance committee.
The DOJ
The DOJ isn't testifying this morning, but they have started an inquiry into what executives at JPMorgan knew when they initially dismissed the losses. It's not clear what kind of charges could come from that investigation.
---
democ now
Thursday, June 14, 2012 Full Show
JPMorgan Chase CEO Gets Warm Hill Welcome from Senators Flooded with Millions in Wall St. Donations
biggest bank, seen as "the good bank" by ceo and BO admin?
Give $ to most of senate comm oversight
demint kissed his ass
Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets. Lawmakers, however, gave a warmer greeting to the man described as Washington’s favorite banker. JPMorgan spent $7.6 million on lobbying last year, and Dimon has a long record of contributing campaign donations to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee. We speak to former investment banker Nomi Prins, author of "Black Tuesday." Prins calls Dimon’s appearance "the tamest — and there have been very tame ones — hearing for any of the bank leaders since the [financial] crisis began in 2008." She adds that "what we saw yesterday was a glimpse of how lobbying money, as well as additional campaign money ... have a tremendous impact on regulations and ... the power that [the financial industry has] within the Senate and, therefore, with respect to regulation of their own industry. ... This is why there’s no line between legislators and bankers." [includes rush transcript]
Filed under Financial Meltdown, Wall Street, lobbying
Guest:
Nomi Prins, former investment banker who worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs and ran the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London, author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street and Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America. Her latest book is Black Tuesday, a novel about corruption and romance surrounding the 1929 stock market crash.
Jamie Dimon’s warm welcome did not come as a surprise to many on Capitol Hill. JPMorgan spent $7.6 million on lobbying last year. According to the watchdog group Open Secrets, Dimon has a long record of contributing campaign donations to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee. Recipients have included committee chair Tim Johnson; Democrat Mark Warner; the top Republican on the committee, Richard Shelby; and Bob Corker. Meanwhile, at least one current staffer on the Senate Banking Committee is a former lobbyist for JPMorgan Chase, and at least five former committee staffers now work at JPMorgan.
This is some of the figures: Michael Bennet, the Democrat from Colorado, received $2.5 million; Robert Menendez, Democrat from New Jersey, $2.3 million; Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, who you were just talking about, $5.6 million; Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, $2.5 million; Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, $3.4 million; Roger Wicker, Republican in Mississippi, $1.5 million. And we could go on.
...
The—two points on that. First of all, he wasn’t separate from the New York Fed. You know, Tim Geithner was not someone kind of separate from him. Jamie Dimon, then and now, was and is a Class A director of the New York Fed, so he is the New York Fed in a lot of instances.
But on a wider point, JPMorgan Chase benefited from two very big things that Senator Merkley didn’t even mention, which was that they achieved an acquisition of Bear Stearns, for which the government is still backing to the tune of $29 billion of guarantees for the assets in that acquisition, and it received some very favorable terms, and in negotiations, to acquire Washington Mutual. So, the result of that entire period was for JPMorgan to have emerged, by the help of so many things that Merkley mentioned as well as the two things I have just mentioned, to become the largest bank in the United States.
REV DOOR: For instance, Kate Childress, a JPMorgan lobbyist since 2008, was also a former aide to Chuck Schumer, who sits on the Banking Committee. You’ve got Mel Martinez, who was a senator in the United States, is now the JPMorgan Chase executive in charge of Florida, Central America and the Caribbean. You’ve got P. Michael Nielsen, a lobbyist with a firm run by former Senator Bob Bennett, who was also on the Banking Committee. He’s been retained by JPMorgan for help with federal probes. And it goes on and on.
related
Related
"Inside Job" Director Charles Ferguson: Where Are the Criminal Prosecutions for Financial Crisis? Jun 01, 2012 | Story
"Inside Job" Director Charles Ferguson: Wall Street Has Turned the U.S. into a "Predatory Nation" May 29, 2012 | Story
50-State, $25B Mortgage Settlement: Relief for Struggling Homeowners or Bailout for Big Banks? Feb 10, 2012 | Story
Despite Salary Caps, Treasury Approved Lucrative Exec Payouts at Dozens of Bailed-Out Firms
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dumped its geo jail holdings b/c? see alternet
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/148442
As a result of fear induced by the raids and other factors, pro-immigrant May Day marches in 2007 were much smaller than those of the previous year. In mid-2007, while many activists and organizers were focused on legislative reform, public protests, eliminating the raids, and trying to help families and friends of those who had been taken away by ICE and other enforcement agencies, GEO and CCA shareholders reaped a huge profit. Both companies issued 2-for-1 stock splits that roughly doubled the value of their shareholders’ stake.
Although stockholders profited handsomely as revenues from prison contracts rose for both companies, the increase wasn’t large enough to satisfy some of their respective major shareholders. J.P. Morgan Chase, a major owner of GEO, dumped most of its stock and relinquished its leadership position in the company.
One problem for major investors seeking huge gains from the for-profit prison business was that revenue rates couldn’t keep rising because federal agencies didn’t have enough personnel to arrest and process more immigrants than the expanded number they were now handling. It became apparent that the only way to significantly raise revenue through increasing the numbers of people picked up, detained and incarcerated was to hire more law enforcement personnel.
The private prison industry now needed a new source of low-cost licensed law enforcement personnel. CCA and GEO then turned to state governments as the focus of business expansion...
---
This morning, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, faced a Senate hearing over more than $2 billion in bank losses caused by risky hedges that blew up. Dimon said that the hedges—investments meant to protect the bank—had grown into “complex and hard-to manage risks.” The losses “let a lot of people down, and we are sorry for it.”
Many lawmakers are holding up the losses as evidence of the need for stronger financial regulation. The chairman of the Senate banking committee, Tim Johnson, D-S.D., in his opening remarks, asked for “a full accounting” of JP Morgan’s losses.
But through campaign contributions and well-connected staff, JP Morgan appears to have already taken its own accounting of the Banking committee. Here’s a picture of connections between the company and the committee:
Revolving Door
One current staffer on the Senate banking committee, Dwight Fettig, is a former lobbyist for JP Morgan. In 2009, the bank hired him to work on “financial services regulatory reform.” Meanwhile, JP Morgan is stacked thick with former committee staff.
Naomi Camper – Currently a lobbyist for JP Morgan. Prior to that, from 2001-2004,she was an aide to Senator Johnson.
Kate Childress –A JP Morgan lobbyist since 2008, she is also a former aide to Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who sits on both the Senate Banking and Finance committees.
Steven Patterson –A JP Morgan lobbyist and formerly a staff director for economic policy for the Banking committee.
Nate Gatten— A JP Morgan lobbyist based in London who was reportedly called back to Washington recently to help with the company’s damage control. He is a former lobbyist for Fannie Mae, and, in the 1990s, was a banking aide to former Senator Robert Bennett, R-Utah, who also sat on the committee.
P. Michael Nielsen – A lobbyist with a firm run by former Senator Bennett, he has been retained by JP Morgan for help with federal probes, according to Bloomberg. He wasalso a senior policy adviser to the committee from 2007 to 2010.
American Banker also reported that three other outside lobbyists currently working for JP Morgan were once affiliated with the committee:
Jason Rosenberg – A lobbyist at The Glover Park Group and formerly an aide to Jon Tester, D-Mont., who sits on the committee.
Jenn Fogel-Bublick – A lobbyist at McBee Strategic Consulting and formerly a Democratic counsel on the committee.
Mike Chappell – A lobbyist for Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock and a former press assistant to Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., another committee member.
A former senator on the committee, Mel Martinez, R-Fl., is also now the JP Morgan exec in charge of Florida, Central America, and the Caribbean. Martinez was elected to the Senate in 2004 and went to the bank in 2010. Bloomberg reported that he was called to Washington after the losses were reported.
Lobbyists for JP Morgan appear to be keeping busy. The bank spent $7.6 million on lobbying last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Campaign Contributions:
JP Morgan has also been a generous donor to banking committee members, both Republican and Democratic.
JP Morgan is the second largest campaign contributor to Johnson, the committee chair, and to the top Republican on the committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, over the past twenty years, according to a tally from American Banker.
JP Morgan employees have donated more than $80,000 to Johnson since 1998 and more than $136,000 to Shelby since 1990.
So far in 2012, Dimon has personally donated to committee members Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Mark Warner, D-Va. In 2008, he gave $2,000 each to Johnson and Shelby.
Six of the 22 members of the banking committee have not received any money from JP Morgan PACs or employees in recent election cycles. Two of those members are retiring and aren’t collecting campaign funds.
It’s not clear what the committee will do beyond the hearings. Numerous federal agencies are investigating JP Morgan’s losses, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Next Tuesday, Dimon will testify in front of the House Committee on Financial Services.
---
did deal w/
Magnetar drove the bubble
http://www.propublica.org/series/the-wall-street-money-machine
---
propubl:
When Wall Street giant JPMorgan Chase announced this week that it had lost an estimated $2 billion (now upped to $3 billion) on risky trades, Republican and Democratic members of Congress rushed to make their political cases: Either this was something that more regulation couldn't have prevented, or this was exactly what stronger government rules could have thwarted.
None of them, however, mentioned whether they had a financial stake in JPMorgan Chase.
Usually, the money-in-politics conversation is about how much money a company has invested in a politician via campaign donations. In this case, while JPMorgan Chase has plenty invested, it also goes the other way: at least 38 members of Congress owned shares in the bank.
According to OpenSecrets.org data, which is based on personal financial disclosure forms filed by all members of Congress for the year 2010 (disclosure forms for 2011 were due this week, but aren't yet publicly available), 15 Democrats and 23 Republicans owned shares in JPMorgan Chase worth a total of between $2.1 million and $3.8 million.
The single biggest congressional shareholder in the company at that point was Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who reported owning at least $1,000,001 in JPMorgan Chase stock. Of course, for Lautenberg, who is listed as the fifth-richest senator with an estimated personal net worth of between $55 million and $116 million, the bank was just one of 190 assets he listed.
Below is a list of all senators with a stake in the bank as of 2010:
Senators Minimum Maximum
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D) $1,000,001 $1,000,001
Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D) $100,001 $250,000
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D) $52,003 $130,000
Sen. Tom Coburn (R) $17,003 $80,000
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) $15,001 $50,000
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) $15,001 $50,000
Sen. Jon L. Kyl (R) $2,290 $2,290
Sen. Kay R. Hagan (D) $2,002 $31,000
Sen. Pat Roberts (R) $1,001 $15,000
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) $1,001 $15,000
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R) $1,001 $15,000
Sen. Tom Carper (D) $1,001 $15,000
Sen. David Vitter (R) $1,001 $15,000
The top JPMorgan Chase investor in the House was Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), who owned more than a quarter million dollars' worth of JPMorgan Chase shares in 2010, a much larger chunk of his entire personal net worth. Below is the complete list of House members who owned a piece of JPMorgan Chase in 2010.
Representatives Minimum Maximum
Rep. Leonard Lance (R) $250,001 $500,000
Rep. Jim Renacci (R) $213,937 $213,937
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr (R) $100,001 $250,000
Rep. Peter Welch (D) $100,001 $250,000
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D) $50,001 $100,000
Rep. Mike Conaway (R) $50,001 $100,000
Rep. John Boehner (R) $30,002 $100,000
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R) $30,002 $100,000
Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R) $17,003 $80,000
Rep. Connie Mack (R) $17,003 $80,000
Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R) $15,001 $50,000
Rep. Kurt Schrader (D) $15,001 $50,000
Rep. David McKinley (R) $15,001 $50,000
Rep. Rick Berg (R) $5,472 $5,472
Rep. Tom Price (R) $3,690 $3,690
Rep. Vernon Buchanan (R) $2,002 $30,000
Rep. Michael McCaul (R) $2,002 $30,000
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D) $2,002 $30,000
Rep. Fred Upton (R) $2,002 $30,000
Rep. Ben Chandler (D) $1,001 $15,000
Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr (R) $1,001 $15,000
Rep. Brad Miller (D) $1,001 $15,000
Rep. Gary Peters (D) $1,001 $15,000
Rep. Nan Hayworth (R) $1,001 $15,000
Rep. Dan Benishek (R) $1,001 $15,000
In the executive branch, the lone JPMorgan Chase investor -- who also happened to be the biggest of any that we are aware of -- was former White House Chief of Staff William Daley, who left his post in January 2012. It's not surprising, since Daley is a former top executive for JPMorgan Chase; he held a stake worth somewhere between $5 million and $25 million.
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processes food stamp transactions http://front.moveon.org/shocking-how-one-bank-gets-big-time-profits-from-food-stamps/?rc=daily.share&id=35004-20164584-SCRzPcx
offshores support
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As the New York Times media reporter, Brian Stelter, noted on Saturday, December 9, NBC agreed to broadcast a two-hour television show fully funded and sponsored by JPMorgan Chase called the "American Giving Awards." The program, which aired this weekend, showcased solely recipients of charitable donations from Chase, featured commercials for Chase and reminded viewers constantly throughout the broadcast that the entire event was "presented by Chase." NBC presented the show under the guise of a heartwarming holiday season special, but it was really a promotional/advertising event emblematic of a troubling trend among big businesses of creating their own media and disguising it as entertainment. As Lisa Graves, the Center for Media and Democracy’s Executive Director told the New York Times, the show is a "greed-washing campaign to score PR points."
JPMorgan Chase helped bring about the global economic crash of 2008, yet none of its principals have been held to account its role in the Wall Street meltdown, and it has benefited from other aspects of the Wall Street bailout beyond TARP, which the Center for Media and Democracy has documented here.
Earlier this year, after posting over $17 billion in net income in the year after the stock market crashed, JPMorgan “set aside $9.73 billion for 26,314 workers” for pay and bonuses at its investment bank, which was enough, according to BusinessWeek, to pay “an average of $369,651 to each employee for 2010, or 2.4 percent less than in 2009.” Meanwhile, JPMorgan recently settled claims about junk bonds it marketed to investors and agreed to pay a fine of $1.7 million and about $2 million in restitution. The fine is just slightly less than what Chase has given in the donations featured on the NBC special. As PRWatch’s Graves noted, the $2 million in Chase donations featured on the NBC show "are a drop in the bucket compared to its ultra-lush benefits for bankers who profited richly from the swaps that undermined our nation's financial security."
http://www.prwatch.org/node/11181
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/kristof-a-banker-speaks-with-regret.html?_r=3
Editor-in-chief Elaine November 30, 2011
A Banker Speaks, With Regret
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction, it helps to listen to a former banker like James Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country’s housing mess.
As a regional vice president for Chase Home Finance in southern Florida, Theckston shoveled money at home borrowers. In 2007, his team wrote $2 billion in mortgages, he says. Sometimes those were “no documentation” mortgages.
“On the application, you don’t put down a job; you don’t show income; you don’t show assets,” he said. “But you still got a nod.”
“If you had some old bag lady walking down the street and she had a decent credit score, she got a loan,” he added.
Theckston says that borrowers made harebrained decisions and exaggerated their resources but that bankers were far more culpable — and that all this was driven by pressure from the top.
“You’ve got somebody making $20,000 buying a $500,000 home, thinking that she’d flip it,” he said. “That was crazy, but the banks put programs together to make those kinds of loans.”
Especially when mortgages were securitized and sold off to investors, he said, senior bankers turned a blind eye to shortcuts.
“The bigwigs of the corporations knew this, but they figured we’re going to make billions out of it, so who cares? The government is going to bail us out. And the problem loans will be out of here, maybe even overseas.”
One memory particularly troubles Theckston. He says that some account executives earned a commission seven times higher from subprime loans, rather than prime mortgages. So they looked for less savvy borrowers — those with less education, without previous mortgage experience, or without fluent English — and nudged them toward subprime loans.
These less savvy borrowers were disproportionately blacks and Latinos, he said, and they ended up paying a higher rate so that they were more likely to lose their homes. Senior executives seemed aware of this racial mismatch, he recalled, and frantically tried to cover it up.
Theckston, who has a shelf full of awards that he won from Chase, such as “sales manager of the year,” showed me his 2006 performance review. It indicates that 60 percent of his evaluation depended on him increasing high-risk loans.
In late 2008, when the mortgage market collapsed, Theckston and most of his colleagues were laid off. He says he bears no animus toward Chase, but he does think it is profoundly unfair that troubled banks have been rescued while troubled homeowners have been evicted.
When I called JPMorgan Chase for its side of the story, it didn’t deny the accounts of manic mortgage-writing. Its spokesmen acknowledge that banks had made huge mistakes and noted that Chase no longer writes subprime or no-document mortgages. It also said that it has offered homeowners four times as many mortgage modifications as homes it has foreclosed on.
Still, 28 percent of all American mortgages are “underwater,” according to Zillow, a real estate Web site. That means that more is owed than the home is worth, and the figure is up from 23 percent a year ago. That overhang stifles the economy, for it’s difficult to nurture a broad recovery unless real estate and construction revive.
All this came into sharper focus this week as Bloomberg Markets magazine published a terrific exposé based on lending records it pried out of the Federal Reserve in a lawsuit. It turns out that the Fed provided an astonishing sum to keep banks afloat — $7.8 trillion, equivalent to more than $25,000 per American.
The article estimated that banks earned up to $13 billion in profits by relending that money to businesses and consumers at higher rates.
The Federal Reserve action isn’t a scandal, and arguably it’s a triumph. The Fed did everything imaginable to avert a financial catastrophe — and succeeded. The money was repaid.
Yet what is scandalous is the basic unfairness of what has transpired. The federal government rescued highly paid bankers from their reckless decisions. It protected bank shareholders and creditors. But it mostly turned a cold shoulder to some of the most vulnerable and least sophisticated people in America. Last year alone, banks seized more than one million homes.
Sure, some programs exist to help borrowers in trouble, but not nearly enough. We still haven’t taken such basic steps as allowing bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of a mortgage on a primary home. Legislation to address that has gotten nowhere.
My daughter and I are reading Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” aloud to each other, and those Depression-era injustices seem so familiar today. That’s why the Occupy movement resonates so deeply: When the federal government goes all-out to rescue errant bankers, and stiffs homeowners, that’s not just bad economics. It’s also wrong.
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Buying government power
Cowboy hat
By Jim Hightower - Mon., 11/21/11
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Just to show his gratitude, Jamie Dimon of New York City made a donation to the New York Police Foundation this spring. "These officers," Mr. Dimon said, "put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe."
Yes they do. But was this a gesture by a civic-minded citizen--or the purchase of special protection? When Jamie Dimon says keep "us" safe, I doubt he means us hoi polloi. Rather, I suspect he's hoping that police officials will keep Wall Street bankers like him safe from us. Dimon is chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the financial giant that helped crash our economy, took billions of bailout dollars from us, pays Dimon multimillion-dollar bonuses, refuses to lend capital to create jobs, is now gouging consumers with new fees, and lobbying in Washington to kill regulations that would protect us from banker greed.
The JPMorgan Chase donation that Dimon delivered was $4.6 million--the largest ever to the police foundation. He even got a thank-you note from NYPD boss Raymond Kelly.
But Dimon's bank got its biggest thanks in mid-September. That's when the Occupy Wall Street movement launched its protest. According to a member of Occupy's legal team, the original plan was to base the protest's encampment in Chase Plaza, right in front of the big bank's Wall Street offices. But the NYPD was there in force ahead of the protesters, preemptively shutting down the plaza. Thus, the Occupy movement settled in at Zuccotti Park, well out of sight of Dimon and other executives of JPMorgan Chase.
This is exactly the sort of corrupt coziness between corporate and governmental elites that has brought people into the streets.
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/2824
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Election of Directors
The Board has nominated 11 directors: the CEO and 10 other serving directors, all of whom are independent.
Nominee and Principal Occupation
Nominee and Principal Occupation
James A. Bell
Retired Executive Vice President of The Boeing Company
Director since 2011
Timothy P. Flynn
Retired Chairman of KPMG International
Director since May 2012
Crandall C. Bowles
Chairman of Springs Industries, Inc.
Director since 2006
Ellen V. Futter
President and Trustee of the American Museum of Natural History
Director since 2001 and Director of J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated from 1997 to 2000
Stephen B. Burke
Chief Executive Officer of NBCUniversal, LLC and Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation
Director since 2004 and Director of Bank One Corporation from 2003 to 2004
Laban P. Jackson, Jr.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Clear Creek Properties, Inc.
Director since 2004 and Director of Bank One Corporation from 1993 to 2004
David M. Cote
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Honeywell International Inc.
Director since 2007
Lee R. Raymond (Presiding Director)
Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Exxon Mobil Corporation
Director since 2001 and Director of J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated from 1987 to 2000
James S. Crown
President of Henry Crown and Company
Director since 2004 and Director of Bank One Corporation from 1991 to 2004
William C. Weldon
Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson
Director since 2005
James Dimon
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Director since 2004 and Chairman of the Board of Bank One Corporation from 2000 to 2004
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who rules:
Corporate Centrality
"Centrality" is a concept with two components, a large number of interlocks, plus the degree to which those interlocks are with other companies with a large number of interlocks. These two components are brought together through programs based on matrix algebra (Bonacich, 1972) and Boolean algebra (Bonacich & Domhoff, 1981). (The matrix algebra algorithm, along with many other network measures, is available on UCINET, which can be found at www.analytictech.com.) In the past, banks were invariably the most central organizations in the corporate network, but not any more. In a study of centrality using interlocking directorates among 100 corporations and 109 nonprofits, Citigroup and J. P. Morgan Chase, both headquartered in New York, were among the 10 most central organizations, but they were joined by Sara Lee in Chicago and 3M in St. Paul, which by coincidence were the 104th and 105th largest corporations on the Fortune 500 list a few years ago (Moore, Sobieraj, Whitt, Mayorova, & Beaulieu, 2002, Table 3). According to TheCorporateLibrary.com, in 2004 Sara Lee had ten directors who linked to 31 other companies, which in turn linked to 267 companies, and 3M had 11 directors who linked to 31 other companies, which in turn linked to 297 more companies. In looking at the Sara Lee and 3M networks, keep an eye out for any companies they might share in common.
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