By Simon Johnson
In an interview Thursday on PBS NewsHour, Jeffrey Brown and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had the following exchange:
“JEFFREY BROWN: Do you think Jamie Dimon should be off the board [of the New York Federal Reserve Board]?
TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Well, that’s a question he’ll have to make and the Fed will have to make. But again, on the basic point, which is it is very important, particularly given the damage caused by the crisis, that our system of oversight and safeguards and the enforcement authorities have not just the resources they need, but they are perceived to be above any political influence and have the independence and the ability to make sure these reforms are tough and effective so we protect the American people, again, from a crisis like this. And we’re going to, we’re going to do that.”
In the diplomatic language of Treasury communications, Mr. Geithner just told Jamie Dimon to resign from the New York Fed board (here is the current board composition). It looks bad – and it is bad – to have him on the board of this key part of the Federal Reserve System at a time when his bank is under investigation with regard to its large trading losses and the apparent failure of its risk management system. (Update: Mr. Dimon is on the Management and Budget Committee of the NY Fed board; here is the committee’s charter, which includes reviewing and endorsing “the framework for compensation of the Bank’s senior executives (Senior Vice President and above)”.)
Mr. Geithner’s call is a major and perhaps unprecedented development which can go in one of two ways.
If Mr. Dimon resigns, that is a major humiliation and recognition – at the highest levels of government – that even the country’s best connected banker has overstepped his limits. This would be a major victory for democracy and a step towards reopening the debate on financial reform, including introducing more restrictions on what global megabanks can do.
In modern American politics, symbols and substance are hard to disentangle. The big banks have won many rounds, so many times in recent years – including with the help of Mr. Geithner at key moments during the Dodd-Frank debate, in subsequent discussions over capital requirements, and with regard to design and potential implementation of the Volcker Rule (which would limit proprietary trading and other forms of excessive risk taking by big banks). If Mr. Dimon resigns, this could help open the doors to a broader reevaluation of power in the hands of Too Big To Fail banks – and how they undermine the rest of our economy.
If, as seems more likely, Mr. Dimon stays in place, that would be a great victory for the big banks – and a reminder of who is really in charge of the country. Mr. Geithner will be forced to walk back from his statement; that would not exactly inspire confidence in our officials – or help President Obama get re-elected.
Keep in mind that Mr. Dimon himself decided to transform the relevant part of JP Morgan Chase into a risk-taking operation – and it is the people he chose and the systems he put in place that have now blown up.
The entire record of recent interactions between JP Morgan Chase and the New York Federal Reserve will presumably be looked at by investigators – including the total number of meetings, the precise content, and the involvement of Mr. Dimon himself. For example, how often did Mr. Dimon meet with Bill Dudley, president of the New York Fed, over the past 12 months, either one-on-one or in a group meeting? What exactly was discussed? How did any of these interactions filter down into the supervisory process?
We need an independent investigation of the JP Morgan losses – as I argued Thursday morning on NYT.com’s Economix blog. This investigation should examine, among other things, the relationship between Mr. Dimon, his bank, and the New York Fed.
Who will prove more powerful, Jamie Dimon or Tim Geithner?
The Baseline Scenario 
Third way: Geithner meets with a little “accident”.
I like the above post very much. And it gives me some hope, or what do they call it, boon??? But could we in the United States of America 2012, have a more moralistic reason than just “because it ‘looks’ bad”??? Is that too much to ask at this stage???
This is just to keep up appearances. Geithner is an errand boy.
Everyone – for those who can recognize truth when it is written, I’ve come with some pretty amazing news about Patrick R. Sullivan (a frequent commenter on baselinescenario.com). I have to admit this is quite shocking.
I’ve done some extensive digging on Patrick R. Sullivan on the Internet – and it turns out he is a GOP operative that has been active in the blogosphere since 2004, and might be employed by American Crossroads (a GOP Super PAC). Here is the whale of them all: Patrick R. Sullivan is possibly directly affiliated with, or might even be, Karl Rove. Wow! Who would have thought someone like that would be trolling baselinescenario.com?
Why do I think this?
1. Patrick R. Sullivan’s blog was started in 2004. The special prosecutor assigned to the Valerie Plame Affair on December 30, 2003, is none other than Patrick Fitzgerald. The pen name “Patrick R. Sullivan” was likely used in reference to him. The Irish last name “Sullivan” may also have been used to attack John Kerry with an Irish sounding name to gain legitimacy. “R” might even stand for “Rove.”
2. Look at this blog post:
http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2005/06/karl-rove-holds-up-mirror.html
Notice a very strange way the blog post ends “My, my, what could Karl have been thinking.” Was this Karl Rove slipping up, and playfully acknowledging he is the blog author? Or was this direct acknowledgement of contact with Rove?
3. Patrick R. Sullivan directly acknowledges a link with Karl Rove in this post: http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2006/02/youre-welcome-big-guy.html
4. Patrick R. Sullivan extensively blogs in support of Karl Rove in the Valerie Plame Affair. Why would someone go through such an extensive effort to support Karl Rove?
http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/search?q=rove
5. If you go back to the very first post he made in 2004, (http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2004/09/when-smart-economists-say-stupid_08.html), he ends the note with saying: “From personal experience I know that Professor DeLong has no interest in these oddities in the Kerry military record.” That’s odd. The blog author is acknowledging he personally knows the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration (James Bradford DeLong).
6. So why did Patrick R. Sullivan stop blogging in June 2009? Isn’t it ironic that Karl Rove had to testify under oath to the US Congress in July 2009? Did this come a little too close to home?
Maybe this is Karl Rove, maybe it’s not. But certainly, this individual is well connected. Who knew?
No. Timothy “The Accountant” Geithner runs enforcement for the Washington Mob. Bennie the Beard is the Don. It’s his game. James The Demon Dimon is one of the New York underbosses. Here’s the deal. See… The Conomy Game- The Legend of Bennie The Beard and the Gangbanksters http://is.gd/RjPELJ
A chlling, true story of crime, power, and intrigue.
The link to the NY Fed committee charter appears to be missing. It just links back to this post itself.
Here’s a cheers to derivatives and swaps, and proprietary investments, mislabeled and mis-titled as “hedges”. and here’s to Jamie Dimon being fired by Obama, his best-buddy and slash bank-welfare friend. Here’s a “sad” song for all the people who pretended as they raped America with ARMS (adjustable rate loans/mortgages) that we should all be so “ever so grateful”.
Sorry above, anyway I had some drinks, of you can see past above mistake in video, you’ll get it,
Here’s to all the TBTF bastards being fired from the FEDERAL RESERVE BANK, and I feel if they got fired, “They look so bad, oh babe, they must be bad”.
Is resignation the only way to get rid of Dimon? What are the rules that govern the Board? Can’t someone just throw him out on his ass?
Dearest Jamie Dimon, self-masturbation black belt,,
If you can’t work as a “team”, and you just got “clued in” yesterday, of course we can’r blame you, oh dearest Jamie Dimon, please just for a moment pretend, that all those people being fired were taking the blame for YOU as the administrator, leader, imagine what it would look like if you couldn’t shove responsibility on someone else???
Let’s not forget that Tim Geithner presided over the NY Fed in the lead-up to the meltdown. Further, he played an enormous role in protecting the banksters from prosecution and indeed using hundreds of billions of taxpayer funds to make them “whole”. When AIG went bust, Geithner used the taxpayers to make sure that Goldman and others would lose ONE SINGLE PENNY from their gambling excesses. Criminal behavior – possibly. Malfeasance and dereliction of duty – certainly. It’s odd to hear him portrayed in a semi-positive fashion.
Gee, maybe Jamie Dimon and I can share a libel lawyer.
‘The entire record of recent interactions between JP Morgan Chase and the New York Federal Reserve will presumably be looked at by investigators – including the total number of meetings, the precise content, and the involvement of Mr. Dimon himself. ‘
Does that include March of 2008 when Tim Geithner did everything but get down on his knees and beg Dimon (lender of last resort?), for the good of the country, to take over Bear Stearns?
@ James Kwak, hello. Do you think an incestuous relationship involving a Wall Street titan in the persona of Mr. Dimon and the Fed and Treasury, is going to result in an action symbolic meaningful, such as the separation from service of the Fed and the Wall Street titan? I doubt it, as I believe you do, also.
Absent the current debacle growing much worse, Dimon can always maintain that the latest shareholder voting is proof of validation of Dimon’s risky strategies and programs.
The current world depression and ensuing malaise traces to usury banking, and without major changes, this fact alone will insure the current domination of industry over prudent government regulatory regimens, actions, and oversight.
Shills for the industry writing on this board, whether paid or unpaid, are backing DESTRUCTIVE FORCES, and obscuring a myriad of pernicious effects, the actions and results of which continue to plague mankind in all four corners of the world.
Whether evolution or revolution succeeds in curbing the AVARICIOUS POWERS, remains to be seen.
Thus far, a progression in the evolution of perceptions, even given the best efforts of the numerous bankster-shills,
has been largely ineffective in restraining the often-criminal conduct of banks.
Is it any wonder that NDAA is now law?
Bondy, I don’t think Kwak is in the room right now, and whistler, you might want to tone down the investigation. Who ever he is,he is still just a person, accountable to a higher power, as we all are, and will be even more, in the very short run.
Another good post, Simon.
The WSJ and FT are doing some great reporting here re JP lacking a treasurer while this position was being built and managed; the size of the position might be ~ $100 billion notional (i.e., the size of FB’s IPO, which is 2x GS’s cap), and it looks like the positions might be CDS- or MBS-type synthetics that destroyed the global markets in ’08. Oh, my! Magnified, of course, by levering up to take on the risk.
These positions were put on during Bruno Iksil’s “caveman” period … prior to becoming the London Whale. Oh, my! In the Darwinian swamp of London CDS/MBS, to earn the sobriquet “caveman” meant this guy really had to stand out — the City’s trading community probably thought it was bestowing an honorific upon Mr. Iksil.
At the end of the day, this is not about JP in particular. They were supposed to be the best-managed of the banks, particularly when it comes to risk management. The first huge flag indicating this was not the case appeared when Jamie averred the “bank” changed its VaR model for this risk, and then discovered the extent of the risk was completely misstated. This is insane.
Changing a VaR model is not something that is done quickly or lightly: models have to be verified, code has to be double- and triple-checked, everything has to be vetted. Then the links to other parts of the model have to be double- and triple-checked, and that code and those links have to be vetted. And so on … .
If this really was a $100-billion position, then it was all the more important model and code double- and triple-checking occured: Changing models has a non-trivial effect on the entire bank’s risk position; given the volatility and illiquidity in this market in particular, any part of the big correlation matrix of the bank’s VaR would be affected by such a center of gravity. It’s like the Death Star itself: It warps time and space. (Jamie sounds like he came out of light speed expecting to find Alderaan, but instead ended up in a planetary debris storm.)
The questions that are not being asked include: What prompted JP to even consider changing its VaR model, particularly as regards this book? What was showing up that even Jamie had to be dragged in? What exactly were the VaR reports in pre- and post-changeover showing the bank’s risk officers? The model that was replaced had to have been vetted (all the math, coding and links, presumably, were vetted and then vetted again). How did the risk folks know which model was right and which was wrong (i.e., how did they determine one was spurious)? Who finally signed off on putting the new VaR model in place? Who made the recommendation to the person who ultimately signed off? On what basis was that decision finally made? (These guys are living Godel’s paradox and don’t even know it …)
It’s a safe bet the people approving these models’ implementation — e.g., Jamie himself — have no idea what their modelers are doing or saying to them when they’re being advised to change over to a new VaR model. They’re relying on subordinates who have convinced them they know (or have folks reporting to them who know) what’s going on. The folks writing these models — particularly if they are under duress (meeting an impossible deadline, e.g.) — are relying on each the other’s command of the material … the overall model will only be as good as the least adept modeler and coder … you could have Einstein himself doing the modeling, but if you don’t have folks of an equal caliber at every point in the process, you start losing precision and clarity at an increasing rate. By the time the VaR model gets to folks like Jamie, or his direct reports, no one understands what they’re looking at.
The problem is, the complexity of the market itself, the products, the trading books of all the desks on all the banks, has only increased. And the IQs of the folks making these decisions has not increased commensurately. (It’s still the bottom third of B-school classes running these desks, after all.) The risks are nonlinear dynamical, a heartbeat away from chaotic. Adding new risk to a bank’s portfolio may or may not move them in the right direction of their efficient frontier, but you’ve got no way of knowing that. Adjusting a desk’s position based on a flawed VaR model has repercussions throughout the bank. On every desk. Which feeds back to the bank’s overall risk. Given the VaR-model switch-out, this is exactly what was happening for months (maybe years) before JP changed VaR models.
If the risk position was being managed using what was thought to be a flawed model, and is now being managed by what’s thought to be the correct model, what’s happening to the book and the bank’s overall risk? I have a strong sense no one at JP can answer that.
If that’s true at JP, imagine the slack-jawed bovine stares you’ll get asking such questions at the 3 other banks in the US holding 95% of the derivatives exposure of the entire market (OMG!), or any of the euro banks.
This problem boils down to the following: You’ve got venal personalities trying to game whatever system is put in place so they can retire by 35. Probability being what it is, some will succeed and retire at a young age, even if they are dullards. But at the end of the day, you’ll have explosive outcomes. One doesn’t need a 200 IQ to figure out how such games end.
From your alma mater, Simon:
Working Paper No. 12/128: Quantifying Structural Subsidy Values for Systemically Important Financial Institutions Author/Editor: Ueda, Kenichi ; Weder di Mauro, Beatrice Summary: Claimants to SIFIs receive transfers when governments are forced into bailouts. Ex ante, the bailout expectation lowers daily funding costs. This funding cost differential reflects both the structural level of the government support and the time-varying market valuation for such a support. With large worldwide sample of banks, we estimate the structural subsidy values by exploiting expectations of state support embedded in credit ratings and by using long-run average value of rating bonus. It was already sizable, 60 basis points, as of the end-2007, before the crisis. It increased to 80 basis points by the end-2009.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=25928.0
I think we’ve got a very interesting thread going on here.
Why not have the tax cheat that runs the Treasury Dept. resign.
By the way did Geithner not oversee the New York fed leading up to the original crash.
I’ve just checked with Karl Rove and he says I should mention that Sheila Bair is quite a bit less hysterical than Simon Johnson;
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/92617655/
At least she realizes that JPMC had to satisfy regulators that what they were doing–with their VaR model–was prudent, and they must have agreed.
@ Patrick R. Sullivan: Ms. Bair was speaking in very hopeful terms. As in, “I certainly hope they were aware.”
The OCC, JP’s chief regulator, is rivaled only by the OTS in terms of their complete and total incomprehension of what it is they are looking at on any given day. Truly a laugh riot reading an OCC report (no analysis at all, just a collection of numbers), or listening to an OCC person talk.
I managed to find a video of OCC staffers greeting JP risk managers just before the crash here:
RutRow, @ Markets…the folks at OCC aren’t going to LIKE YOU…LOL!!
@ Patrick, Simon isn’t hysterical in the least, but I am beginning to believe it of you….no kidding.
The complete reinstatement of Glass-Steagall sure would be nice.
Details are noise to cover the heist. And any attention to detail is only for the sole reason of learning what went wrong that they got caught stealing the Mona LIsa, so to speak…
@markets – that’s 4:41 minutes of my life lost forever :-))
‘The OCC, JP’s chief regulator, is rivaled only by the OTS in terms of their complete and total incomprehension of what it is they are looking at on any given day.’
Remind me again, why is more regulation the answer?
There was no regulation out of OTS. What we got was AIGFP gaming a vastly out-gunned regulator (outgunnned in every dimension imaginable — intellectual, financial, legal, and legislative firepower).
There is effectively no regulation out of OCC, as is demonstrated by the increased lurching from crisis to crisis we now are experiencing from the banks. At the OCC there are a bunch of clerks making sure forms get filed, then filling in tables for reports that get issued per Congressional mandate. That is the extent of “regulation” there. These guys also are outgunned in every dimension, too.
We saw something similar at the SEC. The former investment banks destroyed themselves and the global markets, and required the Fed to pull the knife out of the hearts of 2 of 5 IBs left with a pulse after the ’08 crash (GS and MS) by granting them a literal Sunday-night commercial-bank charter. The 3 other investment banks had to be put to sleep. The lobbying for the SEC’s Consolidated Supervised Entities program was led by none other than Hank Paulson when he was ceo at GS; his pitch was the investment banks essentially had to self-regulate in order to compete with the euro banks. They blew themselves up, and the world with them.
Just to refresh your memory, here’s a little nugget from the laughing cows over there: http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-230.htm
__
Chairman Cox Announces End of Consolidated Supervised Entities Program
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2008-230
Washington, D.C., Sept. 26, 2008 — Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox today announced a decision by the Division of Trading and Markets to end the Consolidated Supervised Entities (CSE) program, created in 2004 as a way for global investment bank conglomerates that lack a supervisor under law to voluntarily submit to regulation. Chairman Cox also described the agency’s plans for enhancing SEC oversight of the broker-dealer subsidiaries of bank holding companies regulated by the Federal Reserve, based on the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the SEC and the Fed.
__
If you are unaware of the history of how the SEC got around to adopting the Consolidated whatever program, and its consequences, I suggest you’re on the wrong blog.
That’s about as close to a fat-crayon explanation of why we need regulation. We’ve had none for decades — just a lot of “light touch” supervision that resulted in total destruction of markets and economies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — as long as the banks that fail get to fail — but we don’t really have that, do we, Patrick?
You just TKO’d the guy, dude!
‘There is effectively no regulation out of OCC, as is demonstrated by the increased lurching from crisis to crisis we now are experiencing from the banks. At the OCC there are a bunch of clerks making sure forms get filed, then filling in tables for reports that get issued per Congressional mandate. That is the extent of “regulation” there. These guys also are outgunned in every dimension, too.’
Still, I ask, then why is more regulation the answer?
A Patrick, it’s obvious to anyone with an objective, critical-thinking faculty…..and to those are not SHILLS of one kind or another!!
Patrick, you seem to miss the point. There can’t be “more regulation” when there is no regulation. There are forms being sent in to the OCC, and reports being written. Other than that, nada.
‘ There can’t be “more regulation” when there is no regulation. ‘
One learns so much here; +1 = 0.
True, if we actually LISTENED to the tripe you post here, Patty.
“If, as seems more likely, Mr. Dimon stays in place, that would be a great victory for the big banks – and a reminder of who is really in charge of the country.”
Mr Kwak’s solution is to have D.C. in charge of the country instead.
They are all leeches on the commonweal. His solutions are no better than theirs.
If Dimon had anything to do with the Fed approving, in June 2004, the Basel II regulations which allowed banks to lend to infallible sovereigns against no capital at all, and to slightly less infallible sovereigns like Greece against only 1.6 percent in capital, he should of course resign… together with all other regulators guilty of the same stupidity… like Geithner.
The international banking system, including several large European banks, remains completely insolvent and bankrupt. These banks remain artificially open because of massive infusions of funny money from central banks. These banks are ZOMBIE banks, and need to be shuttered. USA banks are no better off.
Dealing in derivatives caused this international system of finance to blow apart completely, at the seams. Even with better and saner regulation, replete with better capital pegs, the result would have been no different, now, would it have?
To pay for this BANKSTER epic fail, Europeans first, and now Americans, are being asked to eat shoe leather and to die. To hell with the banksters, wherever they happen to be.
I used to think this blog was worth reading…
But I hit the “unsubscribe now” and it doesn’t work. HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa.
So now I have to continue to read tripe like, “This would be a major victory for democracy and a step towards reopening the debate on financial reform, including introducing more restrictions on what global megabanks can do.”
Jamie Dimon surrendering a position on the NY Fed has nothing whatsoever to do with regiulation of “global megabanks”. Far from it being a humiliation for him to resign, I suggest it would be a humiliation for the Fed to have him resign. It is just as arguable that his resignation is a recognition of the depths of uselessness to which Federal government legislation and regulation has fallen. Timmy is the Peter Principle at work.
I have no love for TBTF banks, but to suggest, as this blog does, that the present federal government has anything to contribute to improving our banking system is the height of naivete.
The federal government improved the banking system under strong leadership of FDR, and it has the depth of experience to do it again, in principle.
However, with so many BANKSTER LOBBYISTS involved in arm-twisting the Congress, the present federal government, as the REPROBATE notes, is incapable of improving the system, absent a miracle taking place.
And, who here believes in miracles?
Obama and Geithner had the opportunity to come down hard on these bank executives back in 2009 but instead Obama and Geithner wimped out and let them off the hook. This amounted to the bank executives being given the green light to continue their crony business practices. So it’s not unusual to see the debacle that occurred with JP Morgan Chase recently. There’s been a lot of discussion about regulation but nothing meaningful has been implemented. So I’ll bet you a dime there is similar risky behavior going on in the markets that we don’t know about yet because it’s all done through back room dealings. After the financial collapse in 2008, politicians, the FED and bank executives didn’t learn from their mistakes. And you know what they say about folks who fail to remember history; they are bound to repeat it.
@ Patrick: Let x = x
@Bond “However, with so many BANKSTER LOBBYISTS involved in arm-twisting the Congress, the present federal government, as the REPROBATE notes, is incapable of improving the system, absent a miracle taking place.
And, who here believes in miracles?”
How about who here believes in *war*? :-))
So, operationally, you have identified the problem – we have a HOSTAGE situation. And we know what the demands are – don’t we?
Take it from there, lawpeople….billions went to Patriot Act erections to secure – who? The hostage takers?
If I were an MIT scholar and all I attracted were people like Bond Man and Annie, I’d shoot myself.
@ Pat, for the sake of discussion, let’s pretend you ARE an MIT scholar.
“However, with so many BANKSTER LOBBYISTS involved in arm-twisting the Congress, the present federal government, as the REPROBATE notes, is incapable of improving the system, absent a miracle taking place.”
Recognition of this concept doesn’t require MIT scholarship. It only requires a high school education and a lick of common sense.
Simon, where is Eric Schneiderman in this mix. Are his people going to investigate this bone headed problem? You can tell that it’s an election year, which is the only reason why Geithner opened his mouth regarding Dimond and the FEDNY Board. These are Timmy’s playmates. Talk about politically disingenuous. Just like the Schneiderman Task Force, wimpy sound and fury signifying nothing. After hiring Summers, Geithner, and reappointing Bernanke, there is little question where our President is in regards to Wall Street and the TBTF banks. Duh, he loves them, even if they aren’t giving him the big campaign bucks now. Everyone knows that Dimon is a Democrat, and so this is just more amusing Kabuke for our entertainment. There are so many things that could have happened, or at least been offered by a truly progressive President, and the boat has been missed on 99% of them. In two weeks, after much air space and copy space is devoted to this “story of the moment” it will fade into the background, just like everything else. And once again the real silent agenda, slavery for the 99%, will be front and center, with lots more kabuke crap on C-Span. It’s an election year. What do we expect?
The more versus less regulation debate is so much egghead masturbation when ancient, black letter law like criminal fraud is flouted in the bright sunlight of every day. What good are more rules when they’ll all be ignored?
What’s needed is just one DA who’s got a set. We know the judges (e.g. Rakoff, Preska, Pauley, Schak) are out there, waiting.
Poor Tax Cheat Timmie is in way over his head and is looking for a seven figure salary on Wall Street. Maybe with one of those “too big to fail” institutions (SIFI?)?
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Good post