If you or I get laid off from a job, or if we have a business that gets knocked for a loop when certain Masters of the Universe collapse the economy in their quest for ever more billions, we must get by as best we can on unemployment checks or whatever a bankruptcy court leaves us.
But those same Masters of the Universe who periodically wreck the ecomony for millions of others — a.k.a. Wall Street banksters such as Jamie Dimon, J.P. Morgan Chase chairman and CEO — not only can get by but quickly reap even greater rewards because of their unique ability to call on Uncle Sam to clean up their messes with taxpayer dollars.
It’s a match made in greedmonger heaven.
They’re just loans, you say? True, but gigantic ones made at interest rates so low they qualify as charity.
Even between financial-industry-caused booms and busts these wonderfully wealthy masters and their peers in corporate America get to reach into Uncle Sam’s deep pockets in ways that make them even more wonderfully wealthy.
Get a load of this, the first of 18 brief but eye-opening items that detail who’s been getting what from the rest of us, and how.
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Jamie Dimon Is Not Alone
During the financial crisis, at least 18 former and current directors from Federal Reserve Banks worked in banks and corporations that collectively received over $4 trillion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.1. Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2007. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $391 billion in total financial assistance. JP Morgan Chase was also used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.
In March of 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. The Fed also agreed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.
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Isn’t that special? Don’t you just love a love story about fat cats and sweetheart deals?
You might think this well-researched, eye-opening report comes to us via some major newspaper, magazine or TV news operation, but you would be wrong. It’s the work of the General Accounting Office, updated by America’s senator, Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to include the names of those with a clear conflict of interest.
For some reason a direct link to the report doesn’t work, so instead click here, then click on “Sanders today released the names” to read the rest (it won’t take long). Finally, please share your thoughts in a comment.
We’re too ticked to add our thoughts right now. Grrr!
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