Me, I miss Smith.

Comments are on target. But the senator's job isn't to show off staff research on TV. It's to pass a law that makes a difference.

In this case, it's part of his job to shut this smug little mealy-mouthed creep the heck up. And send a message to the sellout in the White House.

In this case, it's part of his job to shut this smug little mealy-mouthed creep the heck up. And send a message to the sellout in the White House.

Copy that. Merkley had a true "Occupy" moment--he is a rock star.

Best senator in Washington.

Not a Merkley fan, but Dimon sure is not used to being told no. If Merkley was so wrong maybe Dimon could give back the $2B we routed thur AIG to him.

Maybe we should call back in Paulsen and ask him why he forced everyone to take TARP money.

No. This is part of the deal. Senators get to attack major banks in public in order to distract voters. But the terms of their campaign contributions prevent them from taking substantive action. Until I see a law that curbs the practices of 2008, I consider Merkley just a pol playing his assigned role.

Maybe we should call back in Paulsen and ask him why he forced everyone to take TARP money.

No need to bring back Paulson. Two of the four government officials (Geithner and Bernanke)who told Dimon to not leave the room without accepting TARP, have been appointed and reappointed, respectively, by Obama. It's interesting how you guys pick and choose who to villify when, in fact, essentially all the establishment types played a significant role in tailoring the policies that set the stage for the finacial meltdown and defining the subsequent interventions. The answers lay ultimately in getting government out of the leverage game altogether -- not just one side or the other.

Merkley just a pol playing his assigned role.

They say he doesn't get big money from Wall Street.

His assigned role is “New guy rube.” He gets to make populist noises during his first term because the old hacks who have been there two and three terms can’t defend why they never regulate the big banks.

As long as he lost his money or those of his stock holders it shouldn't be any business of the senators (who haven't passed a budget in three years and pay 4billion a day to finance our debt) I just can't stand to listen to these guys scold someone when they're making a mess of things.

If the bank is too big too fail it should be broken up. There should be no bail outs from the gov't. Not for car companies and not for banks. Pro-market not pro-business.

"No need to bring back Paulson. Two of the four government officials (Geithner and Bernanke"

If you want me to say Geithner and Bernanke have equal amounts of culpability - OK. Paulsen was the main pusher though. In addition Geithner/Bernanke didn't have G-S stock to protect the value of either.

Besides, when you say just a pol, I don't see Schumer (Mr Wall Street) leading any charges.

Dion did a good job and put the junior senator in his place.

The US government surely forced that money down their throats. Yep. That's how it played out.

Having no knowledge of how it actually played out, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it didn't happen that way.

The regulators who are privy are sworn to secrecy. If JP Morgan took money then that is good enough for me. They could have said no.

Cap deposit insurance at $100,000 per natural person regardless of whether it is in one bank or 7,000 banks. The cap must be in aggregate, not per each bank.

Merkley could at least order a report be made showing the total FDIC exposer and potential federal government exposure under such a corrected guarantee for the years 2005 forward.

No one is forcing JP Morgan to advertise that deposits are FDIC insured.

If it wasn't so serious, I would laugh at the show hearing on JPM's loss of $2 billion of its own money, when pushing forward as a leading candidate as the systemic cause of the next meltdown is the total $3.9 trillion in unfunded state and local pension liabilities (which by the way JPM, cozy with its pension fund clients, failed to disclose). Outsize leverage, debt and unfunded liabilties cause financial meltdowns. Get a senator who will address those issues if you want to do some real good.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2012/06/13/jpmorgan-questionable-muni-call/

This entire series of investigations are nothing more than political theater. This is nothing more than giving Senators face time before the elections.

1. Why is Congress holding hearings on a private company taking a private loss, which doesn't affect any customers or taxpayers at all? This loss is going to be felt by the shareholders alone, and if they don't like it, they can fire Dimon.

2. Bluster in a committee means nothing. Actual legislative action means something, and you're not going to see that happen. The whole reason for this hearing and appearance by Mr. Dimon is so that congress critters can bloviate, and then go back to their regular business of screwing the people; which feel better for some reason because Mr. Evil Banker got scolded publicly, and on record, with no action actually being taken, because Congress has no jurisdiction over a private loss.