Capital Sense

The J.P. Morgan loss is a non story.  It is not illegal to lose money. The loss was born by the shareholders, as it should be and they – not the regulators – should hold Morgan and Jamie Dimon accountable. Robert Samuelson noted as much in Investors Business Daily in JPMorgan Chase Loss Is No Reason For New Regulation. It is worth noting that it is in the section of IBD called “From the Left.”

On a similar note Tom Frost writes The Danger with Big Banks in the 5/15/12 Wall Street Journal.

Taxpayer safety-net programs, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), should be available only to banks in business to provide insured deposits. Financial institutions that provide primarily investment, hedging and speculative services don’t deserve protection either by the FDIC’s explicit guarantees or by an implicit understanding that taxpayers will bail them out because there is no other alternative. Indeed, this kind of protection is a perversion of capitalism and can distort its good outcomes.

This seems incredibly obvious to me.

The president’s campaign assault on Bain Capital because Romney had to close some plants and lay off workers obviously chose to ignore the far greater number of  companies and jobs that were created by the capital he raised. (Newt Gingrich lost all credibility when he took the same course during the primary). Obama seems to prefer failure in ‘noble’ efforts like Solyndra and other failed solar companies.  The critical difference is the accountability Romney had to his shareholders risking their own money and the total lack of accountability Obama had using taxpayers’ money.