Thursday, April 7, 2016

Even with Jamie Dimon Gone, the New York Fed Still Lacks Credibility

--Yippee! Jamie Dimon stepped away from the NY Fed, an
apparently very quiet relinquishment of power, according to a
January 2013 issue of the Los Angeles Times. Mr. Dimon wasn't
solely felled by appearing before the U.S. Congress regarding
the $6.2 bn stunning losses at J P Morgan Chase racked up by
a single trader, "the London Whale" in 2012. So serious and swift
a loss in that relatively unregulated investment portion of banking
raised the hackles (-finally!) of the SEC, the Fed, and the FBI
(-purportedly).

No, a high-magnitude world-wide financial scandal alone
wouldn't have tempted JD to leave his Board of Directors'
post at the New York Fed, but his throat cancer around
the same time period certainly added its own version of
a "stress test". Jamie also resigned  from a subsidiary post
at his own bank, but remains the CEO...

And very likely, retains all his board memberships, which
are formidably numerous, prestigious and powerful indeed:
Bloomberg's web page, 04/07/2016, lists Mr. Dimon's
connections to no fewer than 284 board members across
six different industries. Many of the most troubling are
through an entity called "The Partnership for New York
City, Inc." This is a select coterie of ~300 CEOs of that
city's top private sector heads, corporate, investment,
entrepreneurial, etc. The PFNYC is a not for profit,
pro NYC organization, but I'm sure it does more than
act as a ceremonial, cheer-leading "I Love New York"
group. It wields enormous influence in donation decisions
with a purse totaling well over $110 million.

Checking Wikipedia, the writers there claim the
PFNYC is dedicated to keeping NYC's status
as the global center for culture, commerce and
innovation. Looking at a very small, partial list
of interlocking directorate colleagues/members,
associated through this PFNYC, I have to
wonder if the Clayton Act and Dodd-Frank
are routinely being violated.

Meanwhile, mea culpa, as only today did I
learn that Dimon had left the NY Fed...three
years ago! The larger objection still remains,
irrespective of Dimon, et al.: the system is still
substantially broken, deliberately requiring major
bank CEOs as Class A directors, sitting CEOs.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Economist  Simon
Johnson (MIT) both cautioned against this
back in 2012; Dodd-Frank only partially
alleviated "rule by the foxes" by giving more
power to the Class B and C directors.

Memo to the U.S. Congress: The whole federal
reserve system really should be made more
accountable and transparent, firstly, by reinstituting
Glass-Steagall, secondly, by not allowing any large
bank's current head to serve on the NY Fed--or any
of the other 11 regional feds.

Take THAT, Jamie!

1 comment:

  1. Well stated as usual Amber. When are we I fear going to go onto some digital monetary system ALA BIT COIN?

    I wonder when will all the fed meetings will be held on the islands. Haven,t most of them been in the past?THE BIG banks, the boys treat us all like puppets . MANY reforms need to come fast. Before something really horrible financially for most people in this country happens.

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