The fine folks at JP Morgan Chase continued to make unchecked bets (the same kind that A.I.G. made and got burned) and lost big: $2 Billion in the last 6 weeks. A few of those folks have since lost their jobs. But not the man who lobbied the hardest against regulations that would prevent Chase from making those bets – no, he still has his job. The shareholders are doing what they’re supposed to be doing: asking tough questions. Will Dimon keep his job? Sure – crony capitalism rewards failures at the top.
What I want to know is where are the massive rallies by the Tea Party calling for Dimon to be fired and regulations to be imposed on gamblers masquerading as bankers?
The answer is easy: there aren’t any and there won’t be any. The Tea Party was co-opted by the same folks who perpetrated the worst activities that led up to the Great Recession and our continued economic malaise. No substantive changes were made in the way Chase or other banks do business – save the tens of Trillions of dollars they got for free from the Federal Reserve.
The co-opting included distracting the populists in the Tea Party with the supposedly scarier threat of a Black Man in the White House.
Meanwhile, speculators were allowed to run up the cost of oil and gasoline, which acts as a choke collar on the American economy, and other right-wing economic theories were imposed across Europe, which has led to what is likely to be another recession:
[h/t Bonddad]
The combination of high oil/gas prices, US corporations sitting on Trillions of dollars in cash (not hiring), and European economic weakness will not help the US economy. Will our “recovery” be over soon; will we follow Europe into weaker and weaker economic conditions? Don’t ask the Tea Party, they don’t truly care.
Weatherdem's Weblog 
May 15, 2012 at 1:03 pm
You say, “crony capitalism rewards failures at the top.” but, here in the UK there are the first signs of shareholders flexing their muscles and saying enough is enough – no more rewards for failure:
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/revolt-join-in-the-shareholder-spring-7742109.html
The leaders of our biggest companies may have been living on another planet but I think the rocket bringing them back to Earth will be landing soon; and the pilot is not accustomed to terrestrial weather so it may well be a little bumpy…
May 16, 2012 at 1:31 pm
That’s good news! I think shareholders are the best route these days to take direct action. They just have to stand up and hold their corporations accountable. The governments certainly won’t do it.
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