No news is good news for Obama these days.
And I don’t mean the absence of news.
What I mean is that none of the news that is coming out about the world, the economy, the prospect of golf vacations, is good for Obama’s reelection chances.
It’s certainly nice for the rest of us that oil prices are coming down.
But it really screws up Obama and Secretary Chu’s plan to keep energy prices so high that European prices begin to look cheap.
Maybe now they’ll apologize for crucifying oil companies.
But I doubt it.
Obama pal Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan took to the Hill yesterday, and, in what’s becoming a regular ritual by company executives, apologized to the rest of us for losing the company’s money.
But not for taking taxpayer money.
Obama and Tim Geithner can own that one.
“Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley also pointedly reminded Dimon that JPMorgan, now the nation's largest bank by assets,” says Reuters, “received Troubled Asset Relief Program assistance during the financial crisis, which provoked a testy response from Dimon.”
I think you were misinformed, said Dimon. I think that misinformation is leading to a lot of the problems we are having today. JPMorgan took TARP because it was asked to by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America.
Ouch! Forget Oprah and Dr Phil.
Congress can start using psychology couches for corporate testimony every time a company tied to Obama has a bad quarter or files for bankruptcy.
That way executives can confess, apologize, plead the Fifth and quicken the process of “healing,” while satisfying their government overlords.
It’s amazing that Dimon still has a job. He can likely thank his administration connections for that.
But heck, in a world where career Democrat bagman Jon Corzine can hide $1.6 billion from client accounts and remain free- at the same time the federal government is using aerial drones to catch cows peeing in unauthorized areas in Iowa and Nebraska- you wouldn’t necessarily characterize our dilemma as government overreach so much as “Government Overlord.”
Corzine was put on the Congressional couch about the missing money months ago. He seemed to have only repressed memories of the money. But he’s sure he didn’t do anything wrong.
Maybe that’s because the money was transferred from Corzine’s company by Obama’s favorite bankers, Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan.
To their credit, so far, JPMorgan has retuned some of the money transferred on Corzine’s last watch.
“[James] Giddens [trustee in charge of liquidating Corzine’s old firm] also said he’s in discussions with JPMorgan Chase & Co. regarding money transfers that may be ‘voidable or otherwise recoverable,’” reports the Washington Post. “Giddens said JPMorgan has returned about $89.2 million in customer property and $518.4 million in non-segregated unallocated MF Global Inc. assets. He may sue the bank if he can’t strike an agreement about further returns of money, he said.”
This is Corzine’s second tour as a failed trader too.
“Corzine was booted from Goldman in 1999,” reports the New York Post, “after the firm both suffered huge trading losses and botched the timing of its long awaited IPO. That’s when he earned the nickname ‘fuzzy’ — and it had nothing to do with his beard.”
Only Democrats would be silly enough to give a guy a second chance at playing Wall Street banker after such poor results the first time.
Oh; and that goes for Corzine AND for Obama.
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