Of course he thought it was a "favor" for the government regulators - watchdogs on the financial corp.

Reader comment on: Two on JPMorgan Chase

Submitted by Mark Michael (United States), Sep 26, 2013 13:30

Just about every financial institution has at least one government regulator whose existence is based on the idea they are objective watchdogs on the greedy profit-seeking capitalist exploiters. When it's clear that one (or more) of those "watchdogs" fell down on the job - were caught sleeping behind the wheel - and they ask one of those profit-making capitalists to bail them out - of course it's a "favor".

Try enumerating all of the government agencies, regulators and which portion of private financial institutions they monitor. Off the top of my head: FDIC monitors all federally-chartered banks. The Treasury Dept. has several agencies that allegedly monitor such institutions: Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), Office of Thrift Savings (OTS). The SEC allegedly monitors publicly-held corporations. There's the Chicago-based agency that monitors the Commodities Trading Markets - and argues with the SEC and other fellow regulators. The Federal Reserve itself is supposed to be the "bank of last resort" - a function before its existence was performed by large money center banks with lots of resources. In the private sector, that "bank of last resort" required it to carefully monitor the healthiness of those smaller banks within its pyramid of allied banks. They would profit from identifying any risky behavior before it got out of hand and would require an expensive bailout. They would raise the "price" of continuing to perform that "bank of last resort" business service for that smaller bank.

When the Political Class uses its police powers to commandeer important functions from the private sector, they end up using their police powers to control the behavior of those citizens. They use rent-seeking favor granting, etc. to bind them to bend to their will. It's little different from the much crasser version to see throughout the Third World - the Middle East with its criminal extended family regimes.

Note: Comments are moderated by the editor and are subject to editing.

Other reader comments on this item

Comment on this item