The U.S. economy is bleeding thanks to the interest of big Wall
Street banks and policymakers like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke who cater to them, said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said recently he did the Federal
Reserve “a favor” by agreeing to take over troubled Bear Stearns
during the 2008 financial crisis that ended with the government
bailing the sector out.
“I don’t owe Mr. Dimon anything,” McCain told CNBC.
“Mr. Dimon has done very well, as have major financial institutions,
and the American people are very unhappy and dissatisfied with it,
as they should be.”
Meanwhile, McCain said he wasn’t sure he would support Bernanke for
another term in light of the U.S. central bank’s decision to pump
trillions of dollars into the financial system by buying mortgage
debt and Treasury holdings held by banks.
The monetary stimulus tool, known as quantitative easing, aims to
spur recovery via pushing down borrowing costs and encourage more
investing.
“I’d have to think about it. … But I’m very unhappy with his
performance and what’s happened to the economy when he’s announced
all these measures and all the easy money. Who gets the benefit of
the easy money? The big businesses on Wall Street,” McCain said.
Meanwhile, policymakers must find ways to pay off the country’s $16
trillion debt, and partisan bickering over such fiscal reforms needs
to end.
“We need to sit down all of us with our president and say, this is
our deficit, this is our goal, here is the period of time that we
have in order to fix it and here are the measures that have to be on
the table,” he said.
“Whether we agree or disagree on the measures needed. We’ve got to
stop the bleeding, and that means putting everything on the table.”
Dimon, meanwhile, lashed out against a lawsuit filed against the
bank for alleged misdeeds that took place at Bear Stearns before
JPMorgan took it over.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently filed a civil
fraud lawsuit against JPMorgan concerning securities sold by Bear
Stearns, which JPMorgan bought in 2008.
The suit claims that Bear Stearns failed to ensure the quality of
loans forming part of mortgage-backed securities it sold in 2006 and
2007.
“I’m going to say we’ve lost $5 billion to $10 billion on various
things related to Bear Stearns now. And yes, I put it in the unfair
category,” Dimon said, speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations
event in Washington, according to Reuters.
“We didn’t participate with the Federal Reserve, OK?” he added.
“Let’s get this one exactly right. We were asked to do it. We did it
at great risk to ourselves ... Would I have done Bear Stearns again
knowing what I know today? It’s real close.”
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