Just hours after a top JPMorgan Chase executive retired in the wake of a stunning $2 billion trading loss, President Obama told the hosts of ABC’s “The View” that the bank’s risky bets exemplified the need for Wall Street reform.
“JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion and counting,” the president said. “We don’t know all the details. It’s going to be investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street reform.”
While a powerhouse like JPMorgan might be able to weather an error that the bank’s own CEO called “egregious,” the president questioned what might happen to smaller institutions in similar situations.
“This is the best, or one of the best-managed banks. You could have a bank that isn’t as strong, isn’t as profitable making those same bets and we might have had to step in,” Obama said. “That’s exactly why Wall Street reform’s so important.”
While touting his efforts to rein in the Wall Street behavior that led to the massive taxpayer bailout of the banks following the financial crisis, he noted his administration is still fighting for tough reform.
Pivoting to November, the president said Wall Street reform is one of the many critical areas where he and his Republican challenger, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, have a different vision for the future.
{ABC News/Matzav.com Newscenter}
Boy, is that a misleading headline. Mr. Obama wasn’t praising JP Morgan – he was talking about how awful Wall Street banks are being managed. If the “best managed” bank can drop 2 BILLION on a badly-thought-out rsik, what are the rest of them doing? Once upon a time banks were stodgy, reliable and trustworthy. Those were the days when a CEO who dropped a couple of billion would get fired, not promised amnesty.