Monday
Feb212011
Bash the Bank
February 21, 2011 For the last quarter of 2010, JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) had a 47% jump in profits and since 2010 was such a good year it set aside $9.73 billion for its investment bankers’ bonuses. It is easy for pundits to decry such bonuses and at the World Economic Forum in Davos the bank’s president, Jamie Dimon, struck back at critics. He deplored what he described as “banker bashing” and said that bankers have become political whipping boys. He doesn’t seem to know why that is. To figure it out he could go back to JPMC’s actions in the early days of the foreclosure crisis and its unwillingness to help homeowners, whose homes were in foreclosure, modify their mortgages, an unwillingness described here and in countless other publications.