May 11, 2012

Quote of the Day: Other Bankers are Even Dumber Than Jamie Dimon

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From JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, on whether his bank’s $2 billion trading loss suggests that bank trading ought to be more closely regulated:

Just because we’re stupid doesn’t mean everybody else was.

Dimon is digging himself an even deeper hole here. Here’s the thing: JPMorgan really does have a sterling reputation. So does Dimon. By consensus, he’s probably the best big bank CEO around. But even so he managed to lose $2 billion in a few weeks.

Luckily, no big harm was done. JPMorgan has a solid balance sheet, the banking system is on solid ground these days, and the loss means little more than a hit to earnings. But think about this: If even JPMorgan can lose a colossal amount of money on stupid trades. If even JPMorgan has lousy controls in place. If even Jamie Dimon allowed himself to be lulled to sleep by a star trader. If all that happened, what are the odds it’s not going to happen to a less well managed bank in the future, and happen at a time when it turns into another Lehman Brothers and shorts out the entire financial system? The odds are way too short for comfort, I’d say.

Would even Jamie Dimon take that bet?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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