http://news.linktv.org Link TV News Videos (Filtered by topics: JPMorgan Chase) en-us Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:40:00 -0800 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-banks-pay-85b-to-settle-mortgage-mess?start=0 Ten banks will pay $8.5 billion in a settlement following a US government-mandated review of housing foreclosures. Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, MetLife Bank, and five others will pay $3.3 billion to borrowers, and $5.2 billion in loan modifications and forgiveness.&nbsp;In a separate settlement Bank of America agreed to pay $11.6 billion to Fannie Mae. Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:40:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-banks-pay-85b-to-settle-mortgage-mess Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Foreclosure, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife, Mortgage loan, Fannie Mae, US Government, Al Jazeera English Ten banks will pay $8.5 billion in a settlement following a US government-mandated review of housing crisis foreclosures. Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, MetLife Bank, and five others will pay $3.3 billion to borrowers, and $5.2 billion in loan modifications and forgiveness. In a separate settlement Bank of America agreed to pay $11.6 billion to Fannie Mae. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-22-2012?start=104 In the first hearing of its kind, a Senate panel heard testimony this week on the psychological and human rights implications of solitary confinement in US prisons. In a rare interview, former Texas death row prisoner Anthony Graves joins Democracy Now! to recount his experience in solitary confinement and how he was fully exonerated and released. And the 2012 presidential election is set to become the most expensive race in history, so will it be decided by the secret spending of the super-rich? Plus headlines, and more. Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:33:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-22-2012 Solitary confinement, Incarceration in the United States, United States, US Senate, Anthony Graves, United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, Dick Durbin, Prison, James Ridgeway, Prisoner abuse Credit agency Moody's has downgraded the credit ratings of 15 of the world’s biggest banks, saying all are at risk of major losses. The downgraded banks include Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and JPMorgan Chase, which recently lost $3 billion on risky bets. In a statement, a Moody's executive said the banks "have significant exposure to the volatility and risk of outsized losses inherent to capital market activities." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012?start=0 Protesters confront JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as he testifies on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets, but US senators give him an easy ride. Plus headlines, and more. Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:02:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012 JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, United States Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs , Barack Obama, United States, Syria, Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, National security, Syrian Civil War, Crimes Against Humanity Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets; lawmakers, however, gave him a warmer reception. A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise. And a bipartisan dispute has emerged on Capitol Hill over how to investigate a series of national security leaks, including disclosures about President Obama's secret "kill list." Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012?start=843 Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets. Lawmakers, however, gave a warmer greeting to "Washington's favorite banker." Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:02:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012 JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, United States Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs , Barack Obama, United States, Syria, Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, National security, Syrian Civil War, Crimes Against Humanity Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets. Lawmakers, however, gave a warmer greeting to the man described as Washington's favorite banker. JPMorgan spent $7.6 million on lobbying last year, and Dimon has a long record of contributing campaign donations to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee. We speak to former investment banker Nomi Prins, author of "Black Tuesday." Prins calls Dimon's appearance "the tamest — and there have been very tame ones — hearing for any of the bank leaders since the [financial] crisis began in 2008." She adds that "what we saw yesterday was a glimpse of how lobbying money, as well as additional campaign money ... have a tremendous impact on regulations and ... the power that [the financial industry has] within the Senate and, therefore, with respect to regulation of their own industry. ... This is why there's no line between legislators and bankers." JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday for the first time since his bank lost up to $3 billion in a risky speculative bet. Dimon apologized for the loss but failed to explain how the money was actually lost. He also continued his voice his opposition to new banking regulations. During the hearing, Dimon was repeatedly confronted by protesters. PROTESTER: This man is a criminal, and people need to shout out about this man and 18 other cronies that have been stealing near-zero-interest loans from the people, when the small businesses can't get the same loans, when the people are deprived loans to get into their—to keep their houses, when people are being thrown out on the streets. While protesters attempted to confront Dimon, many lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee warmly welcomed him and repeatedly praised the bank. This is Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. SEN. JIM DEMINT: Thank you, Mr. Dimon. I really appreciate you voluntarily coming in to talk with us. It is important that we talk about things happening in the industry. It will, I think, advise us, help us and—as we look forward, and hopefully it will contribute to best practice scenario in the industry, and I appreciate your emphasis on a continuous quality improvement. We can hardly sit in judgment of your losing $2 billion. We lose twice that every day here in Washington and plan to continue to do that every day. And it's comforting to know that even with the $2 million—$2 billion loss in a trade last year, your company still, I think, had a $19 billion profit. During that same period, we lost over a trillion dollars. So if we had a clawback provision, none of us would be getting paid here. So the intent today is really not to sit in judgment, but to maybe understand better what happened. Jamie Dimon's warm welcome did not come as a surprise to many on Capitol Hill. JPMorgan spent $7.6 million on lobbying last year. According to the watchdog group Open Secrets, Dimon has a long record of contributing campaign donations to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee. Recipients have included committee chair Tim Johnson; Democrat Mark Warner; the top Republican on the committee, Richard Shelby; and Bob Corker. Meanwhile, at least one current staffer on the Senate Banking Committee is a former lobbyist for JPMorgan Chase, and at least five former committee staffers now work at JPMorgan. While JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon apologized for the bank's recent $3 billion loss, he failed to say how the money was lost. I think that, no matter how good you are, how competent people are, never, ever get complacent in risk. Challenge everything. Make sure people on risk committees are always asking questions, that's sharing information, and that you have very, very granular limits when you're taking risk. A granular limit says you could take no more than x risk in y, no more this risk in a name nor this risk in a market, including things like liquidity risks, so that you're controlled. In the rest of the company, we have those disciplines in place. We didn't have it here, and that's what caused the problem. To talk more about JPMorgan, we're joined by financial journalist Nomi Prins. She formerly worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs and ran the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. Her latest book is called Black Tuesday, which is a novel about corruption and romance surrounding the 1929 stock market crash. She's also the author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street as well as Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America. Nomi Prins, you tweeted all through yesterday's hearing. Why was Jamie Dimon called to speak before, testify before the Senate Banking Committee? Well, as we just heard, apparently, from one senator, he wasn't called to sit there and be judged for the loss, how it was created, how he felt sorry but unaccountable for its creation. So that didn't seem to be the purpose for a lot of the senators there. What did seem to be an overriding purpose for this hearing was a judgment on regulation of the industry, where Jamie Dimon was sort of used as the pin for the senators that were talking about the need to not further regulate or more harshly regulate the banking industry, to which he of course falls very neatly in line, and the ones that sort of were talking about regulating it, but not so much. You know, as you mentioned in the read-up, there really wasn't a lot of grilling in this particular hearing. I thought it was the tamest—and there have been very tame ones—hearing for any of the bank leaders since the crisis began in 2008. Well, I'd like to play a clip of Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, asking Dimon how much regulators at the OCC, the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, knew about the risky investments that led to JPMorgan Chase's loss. SEN. SHERROD BROWN: Was the OCC told about the trades taking place in your CIO office prior to the April 6 media reports? We are—we try to be very open kimono with regulators. We give them reports. They did—they do get some reports. We give them what they want. We give them the information they want. In this particular case, I think that we—since we were a little misinformed, we probably had them misinformed. The mistake we made, we passed on to them, and we—but the second we found out, the first people we got on the phone with was our regulators to explain: "We have a problem. We want to describe it to you." And, of course, they've been deeply been engaged since then. Nomi Prins, your reaction to this relationship's explanation of how they were dealing with the regulators? Yeah, well, when I was tweeting about it, I think my reaction was to laugh. But I know it's not really funny. It's really quite sad. What he—to interpret what he just said there, it's something like: "We didn't really tell the regulators what was going on, because they didn't ask. And when we knew what was going on, which we weren't really watching, we told them, and then they sort of looked into it, and then all this happened." It's this chicken-and-egg thing with regulators. And actually, throughout his testimony, he was very admissive of regulators doing anything. But he basically said, "Look, we misinformed them because we were misinformed." And the use of the word "we" kind of indicates a general "we." You know, on the one hand, he's sorry. You know, "I am sorry." Jamie Dimon is sorry. On the other hand, "we sort of collectively didn't really know, and then we did know, and when we did know, we told the regulators," and so forth. First of all, it's the regulators' job. This was 20 percent of the firm's assets. Twenty percent of the largest bank in the world's assets were tied up in these trades. You're not allowed to, as a regulator, not know, not ask every single day, hour, whatever, what is going on in that trade. So that was definitely a fault of the regulators. But on the side of Chase, yes, we don't know—and that's sort of what he admitted, without wanting to admit it—what was really going on as that trade was going wrong. And again, the trade was a substantial portion of the assets of the firm. It was not a little trade that blew up. It was not something that, you know, he calls a mistake. It was a dedicated transaction, which he did not explain yesterday, for which, in a derivative's way, in something called a synthetic derivative's way, which is the most risky way of putting on the trade they were putting on, the position that they were taking, as we are seeing, they basically lost money by betting that North American corporate credits were going to improve over that period of time, and they did not. And the way that they bet that was a very expensive and risky way to do it. So, for Jamie Dimon to indicate that he kind of didn't know until he did know is not—it cannot be true. I want to play, Nomi Prins, one of the few tense exchanges from yesterday's hearing, and it's quite something that there were only a few. This is Oregon Democrat, Senator Jeff Merkley, questioning JPMorgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon. In 2008, 2009, your company benefited from half-a-trillion dollars in low-cost federal loans, $25 billion in TARP loans, of TARP funds, untold billions indirectly through the bailout of AIG that helped address your massive exposure in repurchase agreements and derivatives. With all of that in mind, wouldn't JPMorgan have gone down without the massive federal intervention, both directly and indirectly, in 2008 or 2009? I think you were misinformed. And I think that misinformation is leading to a lot of the problems we're having today. JPMorgan took TARP because we were asked to by the Secretary of Treasury of the United States of America, with the FDIC in the room, head of the New York Fed, Tim Geithner, chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. We did not, at that point, need TARP. We were asked to, because we were told—I think correctly so—that if the nine banks there—and some may have needed it—take this TARP, we can get it to the—all these other banks and stop the system from going down. We did not— I'm going to cut you— We did not borrow from the Federal Reserve, except when they asked us to. They said, "Please use these facilities, because it makes it easier for other" — We would all like to be asking— And we were not bailed out by AIG, OK? If AIG itself would have—we would have had a direct loss of maybe a billion or $2 billion if AIG went down, and we would have been OK. Then you have a difference of opinion with many analysts of the situation who felt the AIG bailout did benefit you enormously. And I'm not going to carry that argument with you now. Well, but they're factually— Sir— They're factually wrong. Sir, this is not your hearing. I'm asking you to respond to questions. And I also only have five minutes. Oregon Democrat, Senator Jeff Merkley, questioning JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon before the Senate Banking Committee, testifying yesterday. Your response, Nomi Prins? Well, first of all, it should be noted that Senator Merkley is not one of the recipients of JPMorgan Chase's campaign contributions, so that gave him, I think, the latitude, which we need from our senators, in asking these kind of questions, number one. Number two, this has been the myth that Jamie Dimon has perpetuated from the get-go, that JPMorgan Chase was the only bank that was somehow isolated from the interrelationship of all of the subprime assets that were basically toxically created and fraudulently distributed through the global investor community on the backs of subprime loans that were basically extracted from individuals throughout the country and that somehow they were the only bank that was clean on this. In other words, it would not have suffered any losses, any negativity, had there not been any form of bailout or guarantees from the United States government. The—two points on that. First of all, he wasn't separate from the New York Fed. You know, Tim Geithner was not someone kind of separate from him. Jamie Dimon, then and now, was and is a Class A director of the New York Fed, so he is the New York Fed in a lot of instances. But on a wider point, JPMorgan Chase benefited from two very big things that Senator Merkley didn't even mention, which was that they achieved an acquisition of Bear Stearns, for which the government is still backing to the tune of $29 billion of guarantees for the assets in that acquisition, and it received some very favorable terms, and in negotiations, to acquire Washington Mutual. So, the result of that entire period was for JPMorgan to have emerged, by the help of so many things that Merkley mentioned as well as the two things I have just mentioned, to become the largest bank in the United States. So for him to sit there and say, "You know what? No, this was all just because I was really good, and it was—I was taking one for the team on Wall Street; otherwise—you know, they arm-twisted me. You know, they had a gun to my head. I couldn't help it; I had to take the money," is absolutely ridiculous. Nomi Prins, I'd like to ask you about this whole issue of this incestuous relationship between people connected to JPMorgan Chase and these Senate and House committees. For instance, Kate Childress, a JPMorgan lobbyist since 2008, was also a former aide to Chuck Schumer, who sits on the Banking Committee. You've got Mel Martinez, who was a senator in the United States, is now the JPMorgan Chase executive in charge of Florida, Central America and the Caribbean. You've got P. Michael Nielsen, a lobbyist with a firm run by former Senator Bob Bennett, who was also on the Banking Committee. He's been retained by JPMorgan for help with federal probes. And it goes on and on. Yeah. What we saw yesterday was a glimpse of how that lobbying money, as well as additional campaign money, and in many meetings and phone calls throughout the entire process, which we don't even really quantify in those terms but have a tremendous impact on regulations and on how the industry is viewed and how particular members of it, certainly the larger ones like JPMorgan Chase, are viewed and the power that they have within the Senate and, therefore, with respect to regulation of their own industry. And the fact that there is a revolving door is very much intrinsic to the problem there. You've got an industry where—before, JPMorgan was talking about effectively policing himself, you know, regulators not knowing until we told them, and when we did, you know, and all of that. You know, we have a Senate Banking Committee that's comprised, except for six members, actually, of people who have gotten contributions in some manner from JPMorgan Chase. You know, we have lobbyists who are going back and forth. Chuck Schumer is an example of someone who asked incredibly tepid questions yesterday. One of the things he said, I think, was, "Well, you know, shareholders lost some money, but taxpayers didn't." And then he kind of proceeded to tag a question onto that, which was very, very light-handed. And so, these people really protect, on the side of Washington, the relationships with JPMorgan Chase. They go and work there, or they come from there— Nomi Prins, so, let— —and work within the Senate Banking Committee. Let's talk more— And they write their own rules. And that's partly why we have— Let's talk more about the amounts of money. —no real structural regulation of the industry. We have detailed regulation. We have reports that have to be filled out by the bank, when they want to fill out and with the information they choose to provide. You have regulators running around the offices of these banks. But in terms of real structural change and regulation to make these banks smaller, to make them more accountable, to separate, you know, the deposits and loans of individuals from these types of trades that can go on in a chief investment office and lose billions of dollars, or even make billions of dollars, but have that kind of risk swing, is all because of the relationships, the monetary relationships and revolving door between the banking industry and the banking regulations. Nomi Prins, I want to go to that issue of the money the Senate Banking Committee members have received—in fact, millions of dollars from the financial industry. This is some of the figures: Michael Bennet, the Democrat from Colorado, received $2.5 million; Robert Menendez, Democrat from New Jersey, $2.3 million; Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, who you were just talking about, $5.6 million; Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, $2.5 million; Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, $3.4 million; Roger Wicker, Republican in Mississippi, $1.5 million. And we could go on. Yeah, I mean, this is—this is why there's no line between legislators and bankers. And beyond the millions of dollars that they are getting to run their campaigns and to stay in office or to get elected into office and so forth, there's also all the sort of additional value that is received by the fact that JPMorgan Chase actually is giving them money, because if one bank is giving them money, it's not the only bank giving them money, it's the entire industry. And we're looking at a piece of it through, you know, the largest and most powerful commercial bank in the United States, but this is the way it works. And these people know that partially why they are sitting there in those seats is, unfortunately, not because they were simply voted in, but because they had the money to basically market themselves and stay in and connect to their real friends, which are the banking community they're supposed to be legislating against. Well, we want to thank you very much for being with us, Nomi Prins. Nomi Prins is author of a number of books, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, formerly walked on—worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs and was with Bear Stearns in London. And her latest book is a novel called Black Tuesday, a novel about corruption and romance surrounding the 1929 stock market crash. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-1-2012?start=2638 The Justice Department has ordered Florida to end a controversial voter purge that has primarily targeted Latino and Democratic voters. New constitutional amendment aims to overturn the Citizens United decision by banning corporate campaign cash. In victory for marriage equality, appeals court rules Defense of Marriage Act discriminates against same-sex couples. And "Inside Job" director Charles Ferguson asks: where are the criminal prosecutions for the financial crisis? Plus headlines, and more.<br /> Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:06:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-1-2012 United States, Politics of the United States, Same-sex marriage, Defense of Marriage Act, US Department of Justice, Mitt Romney, Ted Deutch, LGBT rights, Freedom to Marry, United States courts of appeals The Labor Department has just announced the United States economy gained only 69,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent. We air part two of our interview with Academy Award-winning director Charles Ferguson, who first examined the network of academic, financial and political players who contributed to the nation's financial crisis in his documentary, "Inside Job." In his new book, "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America," Ferguson draws on newly released court filings to continue his investigation. Ferguson notes the Clinton administration oversaw the most important financial deregulation, and since then, "We've seen in the Obama administration very little reform and no criminal prosecutions, and the appointment of a very large number of Wall Street executives to senior positions in the government, including some people who were directly responsible for causing significant portions of the crisis." Ferguson also calls for raising the salaries of senior regulators and imposing stricter rules for how soon they can lobby for the private sector after leaving the public sector. The Labor Department has just announced the U.S. economy gained only 69,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent. We end today's show with part two of my conversation with the Academy Award-winning director Charles Ferguson. He first examined the network of academic, financial and political players who contributed to the nation's financial crisis in his documentary, Inside Job. Charles Ferguson now has a new book out that's called Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America. It's based on newly released court filings that reveal how major players contributed to the financial crisis. I began by asking Charles Ferguson about a recent comment of Mitt Romney's. President Obama is an old-school liberal whose first instinct is to see free enterprise as the villain and government as the hero. America counted on President Obama to rescue the economy, to tame the deficit and help create jobs. Instead, he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of your dollars to companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt to this country as all the prior presidents combined. The consequence is that we are now enduring the most tepid recovery in modern history. And let's follow that up with the interview he did with CNN's Soledad O'Brien when he talked about not being concerned about the poorest Americans. I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it You just said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor," because they have a safety net. And I think there are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say that sounds odd. Can you explain that? Well, you had to finish the sentence, Soledad. I said I'm not concerned about the very poor that have a safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them. Got it. OK. The challenge right now—we will hear from the Democrat Party the plight of the poor, and—and there's no question, it's not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor. But my campaign is focused on middle-income Americans. My campaign—I mean, you can choose where to focus. You can focus on the rich. That's not my focus. You can focus on the very poor. That's not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans. Mitt Romney. Charles Ferguson, your response? Mr. Romney is doing a good job of focusing on the rich, including himself, with a net worth of almost $300 million. Unfortunately, the best way to—in the long run, to help the poor in the United States is to give them fairness and opportunity. And that is not something that Mr. Romney's policies or the direction of the country have been giving us recently. And his comments about the adequacy of America's safety net also seem highly questionable. In fact, in this morning's New York Times, there's an article about the imminent cessation of long-term unemployment benefits for very large numbers of Americans who have been unemployed for, in some cases, up to four years. So, I fear that a Romney administration would not bring us a solution to America's economic problems. And Mitt Romney's advisers you referred to earlier, as you talk about, for example, Larry Summers and President Obama? Who does Mitt Romney turn to? And also talk about the fact that he is running for president not as the former governor of Massachusetts but as the former head of the private equity firm Bain. That is what he is saying is his—are his credentials for the job. Yes, both disturbing. Glenn Hubbard is one of his principal economic advisers, and Hubbard not only has the major financial conflicts of interest that I detail in the film and also in the book, he also, when he was head of the Council of Economic Advisers in the George W. Bush administration, was one of the principal designers of the Bush tax cuts, half of whose benefits went to the upper 1 percent of the population. So, I do not think that Mr. Romney's choice of economic advisers indicates his concern for the middle class, needless to say not for the poor. With regard to his record at Bain Capital, the private equity industry, in general, and including Bain Capital, is an industry that is largely unregulated. And although in some cases private equity deals, private equity transactions, have had benefits for companies that are required, for the most part private equity is an extremely efficient machine for making lots of money for private equity executives, in some cases at the direct expense of the companies themselves or the government. One thing that is not widely discussed about the private equity industry is that it frequently depends on hidden subsidies from the government, of the sort that Mr. Romney says he opposes. For example, for-profit—largely unregulated, for-profit universities depend extremely heavily on subsidized student loans, and there have been very widespread abuses of—by private universities that have been owned by private equity firms, including Goldman Sachs. I want to go to a clip, Charles Ferguson, of your Academy Award-winning film, Inside Job. The clip includes your interview with Scott Talbott, one of the top lobbyists for the Financial Services Roundtable. In the U.S., the banks are now bigger, more powerful and more concentrated than ever before. MARTIN WOLF: There are fewer competitors. A lot of smaller banks have been taken over by big ones. JPMorgan today is even bigger than it was before. NOURIEL ROUBINI: JPMorgan took over first Bear Stearns and then WaMu. Bank of America took over Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Wells Fargo took over Wachovia. After the crisis, the financial industry, including the Financial Services Roundtable, worked harder than ever to fight reform. The financial sector employs 3,000 lobbyists, more than five for each member of Congress. Do you think the financial services industry has excessive political influence in the United States? No. I think that every person in the—in the country is represented here in Washington. And you think that all segments of American society have equal and fair access to the system? The—you can walk into any hearing room that you would like. Yes, I do. One can walk into any hearing room. One cannot necessarily write the kind of lobbying checks that your industry writes or engage in the level of political contributions that your industry engages in. Between 1998 and 2008, the financial industry spent over $5 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions. And since the crisis, they're spending even more money. That was Matt Damon, the actor, narrating the Academy Award-winning film, Inside Job. Charles Ferguson directed that film and then went on to write Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America. Take the lessons we learn from Scott Talbott, Charles Ferguson, to what we're seeing today, for example, with Jamie Dimon and the $3 billion loss at JPMorgan Chase. Who has access? Who doesn't? His lobbying, for example, JPMorgan Chase and Jamie Dimon, against the Volcker Rule and what this all means? Is it strong enough? The fierce lobbying about the implementation of the Volcker Rule is yet another example of this phenomenon. The banking industry, including and frequently led by JPMorgan and Mr. Dimon, have spent enormous sums of money to push back against strong implementation of the Volcker Rule and other aspects of even the relatively weak regulation embodied in Dodd-Frank legislation. And Mr. Dimon repeatedly has said that he doesn't think that such regulation is required. And indeed, one of the most astounding things about JPMorgan's recent loss is that regulation is still sufficiently weak that we don't know what that trade actually is. We do not know the details of that transaction, because they do not have to be publicly disclosed. It has been said by people who apparently do know something about the transaction that if the situation in Europe worsens, the losses could extend upwards of $5 billion. And this is a loss that occurred in a relatively forgiving economic environment, at least in the United States, and in a bank that is widely regarded, probably correctly regarded, as the best-run bank in the United States. So, it doesn't give one a great deal of security about what could happen if we have another financial crisis and what could happen in other less well-run, less financially strong banks. You talk about the crisis in Predator Nation being not just, you know, a Republican affair or a Democrat affair, it's a bipartisan affair. Talk about the role of Democrats in all of this. The role of Democrats, I would say, has been at least as great as the role of Republicans. The most important deregulatory legislation was actually passed in the Clinton administration, championed by Robert Rubin, who was secretary of the treasury, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, and then also Larry Summers, who was first deputy treasury secretary and then treasury secretary. First there was the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the law that separated investment from commercial banking. And then, in 2000, the— That was under Clinton. Yes, under the Clinton administration. And then, in the year 2000, also in the Clinton administration, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which actually banned regulation of all so-called over-the-counter derivatives, including the credit default swaps and many other instruments that were at the heard of the 2008 crisis. To his credit, President Clinton has actually publicly stated that he now regrets having passed that law. But it was definitely championed by major fractions of the Democratic Party and policy leadership. And then, of course, we've seen in the Obama administration very little reform and no criminal prosecutions, and the appointment of a very large number of Wall Street executives to senior positions in the government, including some people who were directly responsible for causing significant portions of the crisis. You also talk about how the once-revered figures Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers have simply become courtiers of the—to the elite. Unfortunately, I think that's an apt description. Of course, Alan Greenspan was a private economist before he went into the government, and had even taken money in the 1980s for lobbying on behalf of savings and loan executives who were later sent to prison, including Charles Keating. Larry Summers was first an academic and actually did not start working for the financial sector until after he left government for the first time, when he was president of Harvard and then subsequently a professor at Harvard. But he has consistently favored the financial sector's interests in all ways, and now he has made, by this point, tens of millions of dollars from the financial sector. The issue of regulatory capture—you talk about the importance of more regulation, but what about the—that revolving door between business and regulators? Very important problem. Difficult to address, but not impossible. I think that one very important measure that would be very beneficial would be raising the salaries, dramatically raising the salaries, of senior regulators and senior civil service personnel responsible for economic policy. In some other nations, senior regulators are very well paid, hundreds of thousands, even in some cases over a million dollars a year. And if that's the case, their temptation to favor banks, to go to work for banks, is of course much reduced. And I think that increased pay for the public sector should be accompanied by much stricter restrictions on what people can do after they leave government. Of course, people should be permitted to work in the private sector, but, for example, a five- or 10-year ban on lobbying would, I think be a very beneficial thing. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-29-2012?start=2224 Two years after directing the Academy Award-winning documentary, "Inside Job," filmmaker Charles Ferguson returns with a new book, "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America." Tue, 29 May 2012 11:18:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-29-2012 Egyptian presidential election, 2012, Egypt, United States, Charles Ferguson, Jimmy Carter, Drone, JPMorgan Chase, Drone attacks in Pakistan, Ahmed Shafiq, Mohamed Morsi Two years after directing the Academy Award-winning documentary, “Inside Job,” filmmaker Charles Ferguson returns with a new book, “Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America.” Ferguson explores why no top financial executives have been jailed for their role in the nation's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We also discuss Larry Summers and the revolving door between academia and Wall Street, as well as the key role Democrats have played in deregulating the financial industry. According to Ferguson, a "predatory elite" has "taken over significant portions of economic policy and of the political system, and also, unfortunately, major portions of the economics discipline." With election season heating up here in the United States, the economy remains a crucial focus of the presidential campaign. Earlier this month, the Justice Department opened a criminal probe into a $3 billion trading loss in risky derivatives at financial giant JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank. Meanwhile, investors have launched a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Morgan Stanley and other banks that underwrote the tech giant's public offering, claiming the companies misstated facts and concealed relevant information about Facebook's financial prospects. Plaintiffs say they have lost more than $2.5 billion as Facebook shares plunged in the days after the company went public. Another lawsuit has reportedly been filed in California. Regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, say they plan to probe issues relating to the offering. Salvatore Graziano, an attorney for a plaintiff, said investors were misled. When you go public, when you raise money in the market, you are required to disclose material information. Here, what apparently happened, what's being discussed, is that there was information put in the prospectus which was vague. And then, separately, people at Facebook, allegedly, were talking to Morgan Stanley and the other underwriters, giving them more information, adverse information. And that's what these cases are about. Well, our next guest asks why so little has changed in the banking industry in the nearly four years after the global economic collapse of 2008. Academy-Award winning director Charles Ferguson first examined the network of academic, financial and political players who contributed to the nation's financial crisis in his documentary Inside Job. Charles Ferguson now has a new book out called Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America. It's based on newly released court filings that reveal how major players contributed to the financial crisis. Charles Ferguson, welcome to Democracy Now! JPMorgan Chase, the missing $3 billion, Facebook—talk about these latest developments in the context of a predator nation. I think that they're an indication, a symptom, of the fact that the financial sector in the United States remains out of control and is not sufficiently regulated, and also not sufficiently—indeed, almost not at all—subject to criminal prosecution when it violates the law. So, I think that we unfortunately can expect to see a continuation of this kind of behavior. Talk about—what is so fascinating in Predator Nation is looking at the academic part of the network that you talk about misleading us, the ivory tower. Yes, this is a problem that I think many Americans remain unaware of. I was quite struck when my film was released that most people who saw the film and spoke with me afterwards commented that the section on the economics discipline was the most surprising and shocking to them. What has happened is that over the same period of time, roughly the last 30 years, that money has become so much more important in American politics, it has also become more important in American academia. And the same interest groups, companies, industries, that began contributing to political campaigns and building up lobbying organizations and engaging in revolving-door hiring in the political sphere also began doing the same thing in American academia, to the point that now there is actually an industry, an industry that's probably a couple of billion dollars a year, of selling academic expertise for people who have public policy or legal or law enforcement problems. Charles, let's go to a clip of Inside Job that deals with this, the links between academics at elite institutions in the U.S. and the financial industry. Here you talk to economics professors at Columbia as well as at Harvard. Over the last decade, the financial services industries made about $5 billion worth of political contributions in the United States. That's kind of a lot of money. That doesn't bother you? No. Martin Feldstein is a professor at Harvard and one of the world's most prominent economists. As President Reagan's chief economic adviser, he was a major architect of deregulation. And from 1988 until 2009, he was on the board of directors of both AIG and AIG Financial Products, which paid him millions of dollars. You have any regrets about having been on AIG's board? I have no comments. No, I have no regrets about being on AIG's board. None? That I can say. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. OK. You have any regrets about AIG's decisions? I cannot say anything more about AIG. I've taught at Northwestern and Chicago, Harvard and Columbia. Glenn Hubbard is the dean of Columbia Business School and was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush. Do you think the financial services industry has too much political power in the United States? I don't think so, no. I certainly—you certainly wouldn't get that impression by the drubbing that they regularly get in Washington. Many prominent academics quietly make fortunes while helping the financial industry shape public debate and government policy. The Analysis Group, Charles River Associates, Compass Lexecon, and the Law and Economics Consulting Group manage a multi-billion-dollar industry that provides academic experts for hire. Two bankers who use these services were Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, Bear Stearns hedge fund managers prosecuted for securities fraud. After hiring the Analysis Group, both were acquitted. Glenn Hubbard was paid $100,000 to testify in their defense. Do you think that the economics discipline has a conflict of interest problem? I'm not sure I know what you mean. Do you think that a significant fraction of the economics discipline, number of economists, have financial conflicts of interests that in some way might call into question or color— Oh, I see what you're saying. I doubt it. You know, most academic economists, you know, aren't wealthy business people. Hubbard makes $250,000 a year as a board member of MetLife and was formerly on the board of Capmark, a major commercial mortgage lender during the bubble, which went bankrupt in 2009. He has also advised Nomura Securities, KKR Financial Corporation and many other financial firms. That was a clip of the Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, narrated by the actor Matt Damon. Our guest is Charles Ferguson, who's followed up this film with Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America. Now, can you talk about how these academics, who also become pundits on television, which is a lot of how people come to understand the issues, missed the financial crisis of 2008, certainly didn't predict it, but they were profiting from it, Charles Ferguson? And bring in Larry Summers when you're talking about all of this, who was formerly the president of Harvard. Yes. Unfortunately, Larry Summers, who I've known slightly for a very long time, is kind of Exhibit A with regard to this phenomenon. So, there is now—the revolving door is now a kind of three-way or triangular affair involving academia, politics and policy positions, and major industries, and financial services is probably the most important of them. Slightly behind would be energy and telecommunications. Larry Summers, first as an academic and then as a senior government official—by this point, he's held almost every senior policy position in economics—argued strongly for and participated in a very serious way in the deregulation of the American financial services industry. After he left the Clinton administration, where he eventually became secretary of the Treasury, he became president of Harvard. And even while serving as president of Harvard, he began making large numbers of speeches to financial organizations for very high rates of pay. And also, he began consulting for hedge funds. After he was forced out as president of Harvard, he increased his consulting activities, earning $5 million a year for one day a week of work at a hedge fund called D.E. Shaw, and making over a million dollars a year giving speeches to financial organizations. And at the same time, he continued to participate in policy debates. And most famously, in 2005, he was president at the Jackson Hole conference, which is the most important annual conference of central bankers in the world. And at that conference, Raghu Rajan, who was then—he's a very famous economist who was then the chief economist of the IMF—delivered a paper in which he warned about the growth of risk in the financial services industry and the potential for a catastrophic economic meltdown as a result of increased risk taking in finance. And Summers, at the end of Rajan's presentation, stood up and very, very brutally criticized him and dismissed all of his concerns. So, there have been many other examples of other people who have engaged in similar behavior. Glenn Hubbard is certainly one. Glenn Hubbard is now a senior economic adviser to the Romney campaign. It's unfortunately become a completely bipartisan issue. Economists who support both political parties have very strong financial ties to the financial services industry and have continued to support deregulation. Now, you make a really critical point when you won the Oscar at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. You won it for Inside Job. In your acceptance speech, you drew applause after calling for the jailing of financial executives. Forgive me. I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong. What crimes were committed, Charles Ferguson? What should executives be put in jail for? It's a very long list. Certainly at the top of the list would be securities fraud, accounting fraud and Sarbanes-Oxley violations. Securities fraud is precisely what the name implies. If you sell a security, but you lie about it or you omit material information, that's a crime. And we now know that a very high fraction of the securities that were constructed and sold during the housing bubble and that led to the financial crisis were in fact sold fraudulently, that the mortgage lenders and the investment banks that created, structured and sold them did not tell the truth when they were doing so. And those were very, very significant lies and misrepresentations. And late in the bubble, a number of banks and investment banks began not only selling fraudulent securities, but creating and selling securities for the purpose of betting against them, by profiting on their failure. And that also involved a great deal of dishonesty. And there has not been a single criminal prosecution with regard to that conduct. And following that would be accounting fraud. We now know that many of the lenders and investment banks were dishonest about their own financial positions, concealed the potential size of their losses. The housing bubble was, in effect, a Ponzi scheme, and like all Ponzi schemes, it eventually had to end. And when it ended, of course, we saw the result in the 2008 crisis. And many people, it's now clear, knew that it was going to end that way and knew that their own financial—their own firms', their own companies' financial positions were going to be catastrophically affected and lied about it to the public. And then, third, the Sarbanes-Oxley law requires the CEOs and chief financial officers of banks, all public companies, to certify their financial reports and also the adequacy of their own internal financial controls. And we now have extensive evidence that the senior managements of a number of the banks and investment banks were extremely, explicitly warned that their financial controls were inadequate and that their accounting was fraudulent, and yet they continued to certify their financial reports. And there has, again, not been a single criminal prosecution for such violations. Charles Ferguson, the Obama administration has rationalized its failure to prosecute any senior financial executives by saying their behavior wasn't actually illegal. This is a clip of President Obama speaking at a White House news conference in October. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, first on the issue of—on the issue of prosecutions on Wall Street, one of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehman's and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole subprime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn't necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless. That's exactly why we needed to pass Dodd-Frank, to prohibit some of these practices. You know, the financial sector is very creative, and they are always looking for ways to make money. That's their job. And if there are loopholes and rules that can be bent and arbitrage to be had, they will take advantage of it. So, you know, without commenting on particular prosecutions—obviously, that's not my job, that's the attorney general's job—you know, I think part of people's frustrations, part of my frustration, was a lot of practices that should not have been allowed weren't necessarily against the law, but they had a huge destructive impact. Charles Ferguson, your response to President Obama? President Obama is wrong. And at this point, it's very difficult for me to to believe that he doesn't know that he's wrong. We now have publicly available evidence, through a combination of lawsuits, government investigations and whistleblowers, that there was extensive and highly illegal conduct in the housing bubble and the financial crisis. Explain further. Well, as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, you know, we now know that there was extensive securities fraud. We know that there was extensive accounting fraud. We know that there were extensive Sarbanes-Oxley violations. To give just one example among many, in May of 2008, a man by the name of Matthew Lee, who was a senior vice president at Lehman Brothers, hand-delivered to four senior Lehman executives, including the chief financial officer, a memo, which I quote in my book, which is available on the web—if you Google "Matthew Lee Lehman," you will find it—in which he says, "I feel that it is my ethical and legal responsibility to point out to you that there are billions of dollars of unjustified assets on our balance sheet." And he goes on to say, in some detail, in this memo that his concerns are very serious and that he feels that he absolutely must bring them to the attention of senior Lehman executives. He also says that he had been a loyal Lehman employees since 1994, which he had been. And that's just—that's one example. The CFO and CEO of Lehman continued to certify Lehman's financial statements and the adequacy of its internal financial controls up until a few days before Lehman went bankrupt. They have not been prosecuted. Neither has anybody else. And there's a great deal of now publicly available information, from depositions in lawsuits, subpoenas, etc., that makes it extremely clear that there is overwhelming evidence of massive criminal behavior. And there has not been a single criminal prosecution. Charles, you write that a predator elite has taken over this country. How have they done it? Well, luckily, I think it's too strong to say that they've taken over the country, but they certainly have taken over significant portions of economic policy and of the political system, and also, unfortunately, major portions of the economics discipline. And I think that this has its roots in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, when America first began to encounter economic difficulties and when deregulation first started in earnest in the Reagan administration. And since that time, we've seen a steady and dramatic growth in the use of money to influence politics and also academia. The cost of running for president now, and also the cost of running for the Senate or the House, has gone up by a factor of 20 since the late 1970s. This is now many billions of dollars every election cycle. And when you combine that with other similar trends over the last 30 years—the growing divergence between public sector and government salaries, the growing use of revolving-door hiring, the growth of the lobbying sector, all of which have exploded over the same period—you get to a situation in which the public sector and the public interest are outspent by very specific private interests, especially in the financial sector, by literally probably 50 or a hundred to one. You write not only about the corruption, the law breaking, a predator elite, but you also talk about how to take the country back. And interestingly, you say that the rogue financial sector is seriously dangerous to the economy of America right now. How do you challenge this? How do you take the country back? Well, a lot of hard work. And I think that at this point it's going to have to come from below, from the American people. I think that it's going to have to resemble a movement somewhat like, say, the environmental movement or the civil rights movement, the women's movement, in the sense that it's not going to come from the highest levels of the policy system, and it's not going to come from the highest levels of electoral politics, because, to a great extent, they have been captured and neutralized by the financial sector and other narrow, financially powerful interest groups. And the significance of Occupy arising under President Obama? Well, I hope that it's the first step in what will have to be probably a long and difficult process of forcing our leaders to pay attention and to change. Finally, Charles Ferguson, you write, "The United States, so long [the] beacon of opportunity for," as you say, "the ambitious poor, has become one of the world's most unequal [...] societies." We have 15 seconds. Unfortunately, true. The American Dream is dying as we watch it. And now you're better off being born poor in Asia or Europe than in the United States. Charles Ferguson, Academy Award-winning director of Inside Job, documentary about the financial crisis. His new book is called Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America. Part two on our website at democracynow.org http://news.linktv.org/videos/investment-chief-first-casualty-in-jpmorgan-chase-fallout?start=0 The chief investment officer of one of Wall Street's biggest banks, JP Morgan Chase, is to leave the company following trading losses that could reach three billion dollars. The firm said Ina Drew, who ran the London-based division responsible for the losses, is to retire after 30 years service. Mon, 14 May 2012 16:19:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/investment-chief-first-casualty-in-jpmorgan-chase-fallout JPMorgan Chase, Chief investment officer, Jamie Dimon, London, Bank, Wall Street, Euronews The chief investment officer of one of Wall Street's biggest banks, JP Morgan Chase, is to leave the company following trading losses that could reach three billion dollars. The firm said Ina Drew, who ran the London-based division responsible for the losses, is to retire after 30 years service. "JPMorgan has a great reputation", says Reuter columnist Agnes Crane, "but I think it's like you are never good enough to run a big bank and I think that's what is coming out from this, I think investors are going to start looking at other banks as well. I think this is going to reverberate beyond JPMorgan." The loss will undoubtedly dent the bank's profits although with revenues totalling 37 billion euros it should be able to withstand the blow. In a statement the bank said Matt Zames will take over Drew's position. The bank's boss, Jamie Dimon, has admitted he was wrong to have dismissed concerns about trading at the bank. There have also been unconfirmed reports that two other executives at the bank could resign. http://news.linktv.org/videos/jpmorgan-loses-2b-in-six-weeks?start=0 JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the United states, is in damage control after losing $2 billion in just six weeks due to 'complex investments'. Fri, 11 May 2012 08:30:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/jpmorgan-loses-2b-in-six-weeks JPMorgan Chase, Financial regulation, Jamie Dimon, Wall Street, Financial market, ABC News (Australia) JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the United states, is in damage control after losing $2 billion in just six weeks due to 'complex investments'. CEO Jamie Dimon calls losses the result of "egregious mistakes".