{"id":58036,"date":"2013-08-12T05:46:46","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T04:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/why-is-jpmorgans-jamie-dimon-immune-from-prosecution\/58036\/"},"modified":"2013-08-12T05:46:46","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T04:46:46","slug":"why-is-jpmorgans-jamie-dimon-immune-from-prosecution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/why-is-jpmorgans-jamie-dimon-immune-from-prosecution\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is JPMorgan\u2019s Jamie Dimon immune from prosecution?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n 12 August 2013
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The New York Times<\/em> reported in a front-page article Saturday that the US government will arrest two employees of JPMorgan Chase in connection with a multi-billion-dollar trading loss in 2012 which the bank hid from regulators and investors.<\/p>\n

The criminal charges are part of an attempt by the Obama administration to create the appearance that it is cracking down on Wall Street criminality, while it continues to shield top executives and allow banking fraud and criminality to continue unabated.<\/p>\n

US authorities made clear to the Times<\/em> that they have no plans to seek criminal charges against executives such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. The decision not to bring charges against Dimon is neither an accident nor the result of insufficient evidence. Nearly five years after the greatest financial crash since the Great Depression, triggered by rampant illegality and fraud on the part of the major banks, not a single major institution or leading bank executive has been indicted, let alone tried, convicted and jailed.<\/p>\n

Congressional committees and a special commission appointed to investigate the financial meltdown of September 2008 have published voluminous studies documenting in detail the criminal actions of such banks as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, and the role of their top executives. These reports have been buried and ignored, including by their authors.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the scandals have proliferated\u2013the Libor-rigging scandal, the foreclosure document forgery scandal, multiple scandals involving the fraudulent marketing of sub-prime mortgages, etc.\u2013without any serious response from the government. What all of this shows is that in contemporary America, there is a financial aristocracy that is above the law.<\/p>\n

In early 2012, JPMorgan suffered losses of some $6 billion from high-risk trades in derivatives. The company sought to hide the losses from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by using fraudulent accounting methods in its first-quarter filing. In April of that year, Dimon told investors and the public that the bank\u2019s derivatives losses were a \u201ccomplete tempest in a teapot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last March, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 300-page report documenting fraud and law-breaking by JPMorgan in connection with its derivatives trading loss. The report concluded that JPMorgan used false accounting \u201cto hide hundreds of millions of dollars of losses,\u201d and \u201cmisinformed investors, regulators, and the public about the nature of its risky derivatives trading.\u201d<\/p>\n

The activities documented by the subcommittee report were so systematic, coordinated, and pervasive that they could not have taken place without the direct knowledge and complicity of the banks\u2019 executives, including Dimon. The report noted that even as Dimon was speaking in April 2012 of a \u201ctempest in a teapot,\u201d he \u201cwas already in possession of information about… sustained losses for three straight months, the exponential increase in those losses during March, and the difficulty of exiting the\u2026 positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day after the subcommittee released its report, it held a hearing on JPMorgan\u2019s loss that included company executives and regulators. The committee, however, did not even ask Dimon to testify.<\/p>\n

Known as Obama\u2019s \u201cfavorite banker,\u201d the JPMorgan CEO was a regular guest at the White House during Obama\u2019s first term. Only days after Dimon announced the massive trading loss, Obama publicly defended him, calling him \u201cone of the smartest bankers we\u2019ve got,\u201d and adding that JPMorgan was \u201cone of the best managed banks there is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report of plans to arrest and charge the two JPMorgan employees follows the August 1 conviction in a civil trial of former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre on six counts of securities fraud in relationship to the sale in 2007 of mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations.<\/p>\n

Tourre was made the fall guy for one of the most egregious and well-documented cases of fraud related to the 2008 financial crisis, in which Goldman Sachs sold toxic sub-prime mortgage-backed securities created by the hedge fund Paulson & Co. What Goldman did not tell the investors to which it marketed the securities was that both Paulson and Goldman were betting against the very securities they were selling.<\/p>\n

As in the case of JPMorgan\u2019s trading loss, there is no discussion of bringing charges against Goldman Sachs executives such as CEO Lloyd Blankfein. The goal in convicting Tourre is to give the illusion of cracking down on Wall Street criminality by charging a few low-level figures, while letting the executives, who bear major responsibility, go unpunished.<\/p>\n

The list of scandals involving JPMorgan is voluminous. Last Wednesday, the bank said it was being investigated by the US Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of California for selling fraudulent sub-prime mortgage-backed securities prior to the 2008 crash.<\/p>\n

This adds to a raft of investigations. According to the New York Times<\/em>, these include inquiries by \u201cat least eight federal agencies, a state regulator and two European nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actions under examination include the bank\u2019s participation in the Libor scandal, allegations that JPMorgan facilitated Bernard Madoff\u2019s multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, accusations by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it manipulated energy prices, and the bank\u2019s participation in the so-called robo-signing scandal, in which the employees of major mortgage lenders claimed to have reviewed foreclosure documents with which they were totally unfamiliar.<\/p>\n

The corrupt and incestuous relationship between Wall Street and the regulatory agencies that supposedly police it is summed up in the fact that JPMorgan\u2019s current chief counsel, Stephen Cutler, headed the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 2001 to 2005.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, JPMorgan\u2019s profits, like those of the other major banks, continue to surge. The company\u2019s second quarter earnings rose 31 percent compared to a year ago, to $6.5 billion.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration\u2019s protection of Dimon and his co-conspirators is only one expression of the fact that the entire political system is in the pay of this layer of financial swindlers, who exercise unrestrained domination over all aspects of society.<\/p>\n

The only way to break the political stranglehold of this financial mafia is through a mass movement of the working class, armed with a socialist program. The World Socialist Web Site<\/em> calls for full criminal prosecution of the Wall Street executives and the seizure of all profits gained through illegal means.<\/p>\n

The banks and major corporations must be nationalized, with compensation for small shareholders, and transformed into public utilities run democratically to meet social needs, not private profit.<\/p>\n

Andre Damon<\/p>\n


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…read more<\/a> <\/p>\n

Republished from: World Socialist Web Site<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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