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Category Archives: William K. Black
Why Progressive Austerians do the Greatest Damage
To many people, it seems paradoxical that conservatives target not the worst social programs, but the best. There is no paradox. Bad government programs are desirable from the right’s perspective – they discredit government intervention. Good government programs pose an existential challenge to conservative memes, so they are the prime target for attack.
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Posted in William K. Black
Tagged Austerians, austerity, Austerity Doctrine, progressives, TINA
William Black on JP Morgan and the Failure to Regulate Wall Street Fraud
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Posted in William K. Black
William K. Black: JPMorgan’s “Wild, Crazy Insane Gamble” Puts Global Economy at Risk
To view the interview click here.
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JPMorgan’s Senior Officers’ Addiction to Gambling on Derivatives
JPMorgan’s flacks and apologists have, unintentionally, exposed the fact that their cover story – hedging gone bad – is false. JPMorgan runs the world’s largest gambling operation in financial derivatives. The New York Times reported the key facts, but not the analytics, in an article entitled “Discord at Key JPMorgan Unit is Faulted in Loss.” The analytics suggest that the latest JPMorgan cover story – it was JPMorgan’s “Achilles the heel” (based in the UK) who caused the loss – is misleading.
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Will the New York Times’ Reporters ever admit that European Austerity is the Problem?
The New York Times’ reporters covering Europe’s financial, social, and political crises continue to channel Berlin and demonstrate an ignorance of economics so profound that it rivals the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writers and columnists. On May 18, 2012 the NYT published “Rising Greek Political Star, Foe of Austerity, Puts Europe on Edge.” The problem begins with the title. It is austerity that has put Europe over the edge. The Greek leader the article discusses is one of the best hopes from pulling Europe back from self-inflicted disaster. Most of the euro zone has been thrown into a gratuitous recession and the periphery has been cast into Great Depression levels of unemployment. The title reverses the analytics and implies that if only the peoples of the periphery would silently embrace economic catastrophe all would be well with Europe.
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Macey’s Apologia for JPMorgan’s “Hedginess”
Jonathan Macey is one of the world’s most vitriolic opponents of effective financial regulatory cops on the beat. Those regulatory cops on the beat are essential to prevent a Gresham’s dynamic. When cheaters prosper markets become perverse and bad ethics drives good ethics from the markets. Macey’s argument relies on his assertion that we do not need financial regulators because he asserts that the industry is self-correcting because its officers are reliably dedicated to the interests of its customers due to their desire to maximize their executive compensation. His desired anti-regulatory policies have by and large triumphed over the last 30 years, producing the increasing criminogenic environments that drive our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. His assertions have been repeatedly been falsified by reality in those crises, but the worse his predictions fare the more dogmatic and snide he becomes in attacking those whose predictions have proven correct.
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William K. Black on Democracy Now!
Part 1: Crony Capitalism: After Lobbying Against New Financial Regulations, JPMorgan Loses $2 Billion in Risky Bet
Part 2: Ex-Financial Regulator William Black: Austerity is Sinking Economies from Europe to U.S.
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Why was JPMorgan doing faux hedges of “European distressed debt”?
The usual apologists have rushed to the defense of Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase’s CEO, after he announced that JPMorgan lost over $2 billion on purported hedges. The academic apologist-in-chief, Yale Law’s Jonathan Macey, is outraged that anyone is concerned about these matters. Macey, channeling Dimon’s flacks, asserts that the facts are as follows:
“The sole purpose of hedging is to reduce risk. The particular trades that J.P. Morgan was making were designed and intended to protect the bank’s balance sheet against losses from its exposure to the apparently increasing risk of some of its European assets, including approximately $15 billion in European distressed debt.”
My prior column explained why the purported hedge was not a hedge but a speculative investment in derivatives in contravention of the purpose of the Volcker rule. This column makes two more basic points. First, if JPMorgan’s “sole purpose” was “to reduce risk”, particularly of “$15 billion in European distressed debt” – why didn’t it sell the distressed debt? That would have eliminated the risk, which is far better than “reducing” risk. A true hedge would lock in any loss in the “European distressed debt” so the vastly better strategy if JPMorgan’s “sole purpose” was to “reduce risk” was to sell the inherently extremely risky assets. Even a true hedge is rarely perfect and has some risk of performing poorly, so selling “distressed” assets was unquestionably the superior alternative if one believes (and I don’t) Macey’s assertion that JPMorgan’s sole purpose in dealing with the distressed debt was minimizing its risk.
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Why JP Morgan Gets Away With Bad Bets
By William K. Black
(Written for CNN Opinion)
JPMorgan Chase can be considered a systemically dangerous institution, which means that it is “too big to fail” because the government fears that its collapse would cause a global financial crisis.
It is simply irrational to allow such an institution to exist, especially when it can easily incur a $2 billion trading loss.
Banks are more efficient when shrunk to the point that they can no longer endanger the world economy. But because JPMorgan and similar banks are the leading contributors to Democrats and Republicans, neither political party has the courage to order them to reform.
The Volcker Rule, which aims to prevent insured banks from engaging in speculative bets, was passed as part of the Dodd-Frank Act over the objections of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and almost the entire Republican congressional delegation.
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Posted in William K. Black
