Eschaton

Jamie's Crying

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:56:00 +0000

Those trading positions have produced losses that could total as much as $5 billion, tarnishing the record of an executive who had thrived through the global financial crisis and who has long been known for paying close attention to the bank's trading activity, its risk profile and the activities of its senior employees.

...

In recent years, some of the group's trading morphed into what essentially amounted to big directional bets, and its profits and clout grew. Last year, Mr. Macris dropped risk-control caps that had required traders to exit positions when their losses exceeded $20 million. Ms. Drew and Mr. Macris declined to comment.

Mr. Dimon was unaware of the risk-control change, according to colleagues. Indeed, he had appeared to have started paying less attention to details of the group's trading activities amid the hefty profits, colleagues say.

Morning Thread

noreply@blogger.com (ql) — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:25:00 +0000

Late Night

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:52:00 +0000

For all the haters.

Ask For Your Money Back

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:47:00 +0000

I'm never quite sure who are the grifters and who are the griftees in these situations, but somebody in Sumerians Neglect did it wrong.

Americans Reject

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:07:00 +0000

Via email Americans Elect informs me that their quest to elect Tom Friedman president, or whatever, has come to an end.

At least I think that's what it said.

Happy Hour Thread

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Enjoy.

Cranky Old Man Opinions

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:30:00 +0000

Happy to be wrong, but really don't think self-driving cars will ever really work as they would be required to absent massive reconfiguring of our infrastructure.

Stupid Transit Tricks

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:34:00 +0000

They spent a bunch of money building a tunnel to the stadiums, then didn't think that maybe they should stack trains for the inevitable post-game demand.

Not sure how anyone can be that stupid. My local transit authority is hilariously inept, but even they know to have a bunch of subway trains waiting when there are events at the stadium complex.

Has It Been 3 Years Already

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:10:00 +0000

It's been 3 years since the federal minimum wage was increased to $7.25, with no inflation indexing. If it had been indexed to the CPI it'd be up to $7.78 now. Annually, working 40 hrs./week and 50 weeks per year, that's the difference between $14,500 and $15,560.

Lunch Thread

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

enjoy.

Counterparties

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Ackroyd) — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:00:00 +0000

DDay interviews Elizabeth Warren:

Warren: I think that many people just weren’t aware that Jamie Dimon was advising the New York Federal Reserve. So part of this conversation is just having a lot of people say, “What?” More broadly, Jamie Dimon should resign, but it’s also time to look at the structure of the New York Fed.

FDL News: Of all the regional Fed banks, no?

Warren: All of them, certainly, but let’s remember. The New York Fed decided to bail out AIG, and they set the terms for that bailout. When I was at the COP, we did a massive investigation to understand the process that the New York Fed went through. How they decided not just to bail out AIG, but to pay the counter-parties 100%. I’m sure you remember my questioning of a certain Secretary of the Treasury on that matter. The point is remembering the origin of that as coming from the New York Fed. The basic decisions and execution were shaped by NYFed. So Jamie Dimon should not sit in a position of responsibility, advising that bank, when there’s so much at stake.

It's a little easier to be the Best Big Banker in America when you're regulating yourself.

What Happens When People Don't Have Any Money

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:59:00 +0000

The complete failure of Our Galtian Overlords to run the world properly, even, to some degree, to run it properly for their benefit (not a complete failure here, obviously), is in part due to their inability to comprehend what it's like to not have any money. Or, frankly, to not understand what it's like to exist on "only" $50,000 per year.

I didn't know what would happen with the housing bubble, and I didn't know about all the securitization games, but I did know we had a tremendous housing bubble simply because I knew there was no way so many people could afford $800,000 homes in Riverside and elsewhere.

They want people to be poor and broke and suffering and still paying off their loans and buying their crap. I do not know how this is supposed to work.

There Is Already A Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:57:00 +0000

I keep reading about the potential magnitude of the 'crisis' if Greece leaves the Euro.

There is already a crisis. 20%+ unemployment.

Thursday Is New Jobless Day

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:45:00 +0000

370K new lucky duckies. Not so good and not getting better.

Nobody Could Have Predicted

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I assumed that the only reason they announced it was because it might be much worse...

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank’s initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

Better give them some more free money. Who knows, maybe we already have.

Late Night

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:45:00 +0000

Rock on.

Wednesday Night

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:04:00 +0000

Enjoy.

Once It's Gone...

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:09:00 +0000

Greece might want to... have to... institute capital controls before it's too late.

Money has been fleeing Greece ever since the country’s debt crisis began more than two and a half years ago. But the outflow has picked up velocity since last week’s election, when the elevation of anti-austerity leftist parties in Parliament raised the specter in international financial markets of a Greek default. At a time when Greek’s banking system needs all the help it can get from the rest of Europe, its own depositors are making the banks weaker by the day.

An average of 4 billion euros, or $5.1 billion, has flowed out of Greece every month since 2009, when the European debt crisis first broke open.

Happy Hour Thread

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:00:00 +0000

enjoy.

Afternoon Thread

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:02:00 +0000

Busy with stuff, so go read Pierce,

Wanker of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:24:00 +0000

Fred Hiatt.

Lunch Thread

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

enjoy.

Everybody's Fault But Mine

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:07:00 +0000

One of the joys of the world economy is that Our Galtian Overlords get to blame everybody else for things going wrong.

Sir Mervyn King is warning now that the eurozone crisis is the single biggest threat to Britain's recovery from recession.

Indeed, a disorderly break-up of the eurozone would be so catastrophic that the Bank of England continues to exclude it from its forecasts. But even without it, the Bank now believes that the UK will only grow by around 0.8% this year (down from 1.2% previously).

By his own estimates the recovery really isn't even absent a total crisis.

Still he's right about this:

Governor King said that the most depressing thing about the crisis is that politicians keep treating the crisis as a liquidity problem, when the real crisis is about solvency.

The question all along has been who gets to suck on it? The rich assholes who did it or the rest of us. Mostly the answer has been the rest of us.

Car Sharing

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:59:00 +0000

It probably won't do much to reduce driving - and might even increase it a bit - but it's certainly a cost saver for people who can use it (flip the decision between owning and not owning a car for those who don't need one for their commute) and definitely reduce the amount of required parking in areas where it is popular.

Personally, if convenient affordable car sharing didn't exist, I'm not sure if I would own a car now. But with it I have zero desire to have one.

They'll Never Stop

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:57:00 +0000

One of the weirder beliefs out there is once we get a "deal" which puts the middle estimate of Social Security solvency projected out 75 years or infinity+1 or whenever, the entitlement-killers will declare victory, go home, and we'll never talk about this stuff again.

They'll never stop. They don't care about the health of entitlement programs, they care about their death.