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It turns out that JPMorgan Chase had a risk oversight committee on its board of directors. There were individual risk managers at the various offices as well, but this board was designed to provide oversight for the entire operation. Or, if you prefer, it was designed to pretend to show that JPMorgan Chase cared about risk oversight. That’s clear from who they put on the board:
The three directors who oversee risk at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) include a museum head who sat on American International Group Inc.’s governance committee in 2008, the grandson of a billionaire and the chief executive officer of a company that makes flight controls and work boots.
What the risk committee of the biggest U.S. lender lacks, and what the five next largest competitors have, are directors who worked at a bank or as financial risk managers. The only member with any Wall Street experience, James Crown, hasn’t been employed in the industry for more than 25 years.
Somehow, I don’t think that being President of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, while being a nice job and all, qualifies you to oversee risk at a megabank.
The fact that all of the other big banks at least have someone with knowledge of the industry on their risk committees shows how JPMorgan Chase really didn’t take it seriously. They had wonder boy Jamie Dimon, and they knew how to be careful with their risk. And then the Fail Whale trades came.
Of course, it’s not like the risk oversight committee that is the House Committee on Financial Services in Congress does much of a better job. The banking industry is lousy with Potemkin villages when it comes to oversight and regulation.
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I think being a member of the ruling caste “qualified” him for that post. Gotta know which palms to grease and how much.
He probably knows more about risk than horse’s ass, Dimon.
I mean, which would you trust to protect your millions, DDay?
I’d rather be betting on a Stegosaurus than Euro Bonds.
Reminiscent of letting someone who likes Arabian horses be in charge of hurricane relief.
Sounds like JippyMo’s risk committee needs to see if eCAHN can be lured out of retirement!
Boy, would it be fun watching eCAHN rampage through JippyMo like Sherman’s March to the Sea!
It also shows how conceited/cavalier the committee members are. I wouldn’t pretend to know the first thing about risk oversight in that environment, but the three stooges think they do: I’m important, I can manage anything.
It’s “she.” Ellen V. Futter, who between the Museum and Barnard College has at least run some things in her career. Still, I think the point stands: If Dimon/JPMC were trying to do serious risk management oversight, he/they would have looked elsewhere.
Oh, and by the way: the president of Columbia University and gentleman urban planner also happens to be the chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The Change.Org petition initiated by former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson for Jamie Dimon to step down from the NY Fed is now up over +15k signatures. I think the effort is worthwhile as it helps raise consciousness and support for a future prosecution. Meanwhile, it looks to me that the folks petitioning others to divest from Chase in the City of Phoenix, AZ have it right. Move the money away from the bankstas’ structures and into a local cooperatives which the peeps control.
i think you all need to know a whole lot more about the crown family.
henry crown, aka the colonel, james’ grandfather, i think, was a concrete purveyor in chicago. for many years. especially during the ww2 years and afterwards.
for some reason, after ww2, the korean invasion, the chicago mob[aka la cosa nostra] gave him the mission to clean up their revenues from prostitution, gambling, shylocking, drug running.
his major investment of mob funds was into the post korean war defense contractor now known as general dynamics.
unfortunately, in 1959, this investment came a crapper as general dynamics became the largest loss maker in the history of the world. $1billion dollars.
this was principally the result of crown’s bet that wars would be ending and that commercial aviation would be the salvation. unfortunately, the general dynamics jet airliners[convair 880, 990] lost that market to boeing and its 707.
in 1960, crown and his “customers” saw jfk as their salvation. for the chicago mob’s manipulation of the illinous[chicago] ballot boxes, jfk would reward general dynamics the largest weapons systems procurement contract in the world up to that time.
known as the TFX[F111].
it became a cost plus contract and the chicago mob was made whole.
and henry crown migrated from being a concrete purveyor to an investment banker. still, i think the bulk of his business is laundering mob money.
as you may recall, when jamie dimon left sandy’s citigroup, he became the head of first chicago[the mob's bank].
and following that, jamie and the mob began eating other banks. i am sure that moe and the boys laughed heartily when they took over j.p. morgan’s bank and the rockefellers’ bank.
when young crown joined this board, he replaced jack kauffman. jack was lex wexner’s[the limited] consigliere. but jack and les tore their sheets.
which should make you wonder about how les financed his business. it is common practice in the garment trade to use the mob for financing.
what is important to note here is that these banks would be out of business were it not for their shylocking and money laundering. especially of the revenues of the mob’s drug trafficking.
and this is why barry and eric look the other way. they are the inheritors of all that illicit business.
and i care to tell you, they are in a long line of presidents and ag’s who were involved in money laundering. who had deep ties to the mob.
It’s all about the optics for the external audience – form but no substance.