Money Can’t buy Love for J.P. Morgan, but Do You Wanna Know a Secret about Washington?

                In Money Can't Buy Love at J.P. Morgan Chase, John Carney states “the point of many new rules is to prod big banks to shrink.” I think it amazing that our government believes that well-managed, profitable businesses like J.P. Morgan should be smaller while the U.S. Government, with all its budgetary, bureaucratic bumbling, should become bigger. Milton Friedman once said, “If you put the government in charge of the Sahara, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand!” The shortages and waste in the Federal Government make the London Whale of J.P. Morgan look more like a minnow.

                Two days after April Fools’ Day this year, the State Department’s Inspector General warned that “significant financial risk and lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted dollars over the last six years.” Auditors couldn’t find 33 of 115 contract files…totaling about $2.1 billion and of the 82 remaining files, auditors said 48 contained insufficient documents required by federal law.  Additionally, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement issued a $1 billion contract in Afghanistan that was classified as “incomplete.”

                 And our Government does more than just lose taxpayer money (see chart below), it squanders funds on projects like 3-D pizza printers and a $300 million Army surveillance blimp that doesn’t work.  In Senator Tom Coburn’s annual Wastebook, one hundred examples of egregious government waste costing taxpayers $30 billion in one year are documented.  As for vilifying and fining J.P. Morgan for lack of oversight and unethical behavior?  Recently, the Inspector General stated that the lack of oversight at the State Department, “exposes the department to significant financial risk…creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit  behavior by omitting key documents from the contract files.  It impairs the ability of the Department to take effective and timely action to protect its interests, and, in sum, those of taxpayers

                Yes, government regulators are determined to shrink big banks by pedaling the powerful platitude of “systemic risk.” Did J.P. Morgan fail the U.S. Government when begged to rescue our country from economic catastrophe? No, two failed institutions were purchased because J.P. Morgan was big enough and strong enough and well-run enough to stop the dominoes of disaster from falling, dominoes set in motion not by well-run banks but by our government. Our government initiated the recent financial disaster. Because politicians were selling the “Chicken in Every Pot” propaganda that everyone should own a home, even if too poor to pay for it, regulators winked at loose mortgage underwriting standards. And when people started to default on their mortgages, that started the cradle of the crisis rocking in the precarious tree top of easy money…and down that cradle came…baby and all.

                But, our government won’t shoulder that blame; it is easier to point fingers at big, bad businessmen who know how to budget, build, employ, and invest in the future of our country.  Meanwhile, the U.S. government has a total of $788 billion in unaccounted funds and government waste that could be utilized to repair infrastructure, improve education, and ignite the economy. John Carney’s article is right. Money Can’t Buy Love at J.P. Morgan Chase, but our government had better beware. Next time it needs a powerful bank ally to financially Fix a Hole Where the Rain’s Getting In, it may need to build an ark.  Because if our country wins its war on banks and whittles them down to size, the only places big, powerful banks will exist will be in countries that don’t like us very much. And we’ll find out just how lucky we are seeking help from banks Back in the U.S.S.R.!

Mary M. Glaser

Simsbury, CT

Agency	Project	Amount	Time Spent
Department of Agriculture	Smuttynose brewery - 3 brew tanks	750,970	1 Year
Department of Agriculture	Improper payments to farm producers	16,000,000	1 Year
Department of Agriculture	Improper loans	208,000,000	1 Year
Department of Agriculture	Alabama Watermelon Queen Tour	25,000	1 Year
Department of Defense	Soccer Field in Guantanamo	750,000	1 Year
Department of Education	Student Aid Scams	1,400,000,000	1 Year
Department of Energy	Initiative for Proliferation Prevention (A Cold War Program)	15,000,000	1 Year
Department Of Justice	Conferences	58,000,000	1 Year
Department of Labor	Dropouts from Underperforming Job Programs	118,000,000	1 Year
Department of Labor	Overpayments	148,000,000	1 Year
Department of Labor	Consumer Fraud	14,000,000,000	1 Year
Department of Transportation	Contract Mismanagement	157,000,000	1 Year
Economic Dev. Agency	Fake Cyber Threat Purge	3,000,000	1 Year
FAA	Oklahoma Empty Airport	450,000	1 Year
Federal Grant	Book Vending Machine	35,000	1 Year
Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services	Star Wars Event	365	1 Year
General Accounting Office	Overlapping Programs	95,000,000,000	1 Year
General Accounting Office	Bank Fees for Empty Accounts	890,000	1 Year

- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/07/24/The-Government-Is-Wasting-More-Money-than-You-Think#sthash.IX6YiEiT.dpuf

- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/04/04/6-Billion-Goes-Missing-State-Department#sthash.AeFuZhRi.dpuf

- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/12/17/10-Most-Absurd-Stories-Government-Waste-Year#sthash.0AIpzwiM.dpuf