Risky Business on Wall Street
JP Morgan's enormous $2 billion-plus loss due to "poorly monitored" trades -- which were in the same kind of investment products that helped crash the economy and allowed by loopholes JP Morgan fought for -- demonstrates exactly why we need stronger rules to curb this kind of recklessness on Wall Street.
CORE MESSAGE
We need strong laws to protect Wall Street from itself -- and all of us from Wall Street.
Connect: It’s no wonder Americans don't trust Wall Street.
Remind: We learned the hard way that when big banks gamble, we all pay the price. Wall Street recklessness and greed crashed our economy, putting millions of families out of work.
Define: JP Morgan's $2 billion loss on a bad bet shows us that Wall Street banks refuse to learn and can't be trusted to regulate themselves.
Explain: They invented new ways to recklessly gamble that put our economy at risk and lobbied for loopholes that let them to get away with it. Now they're trying to weaken our laws even more.
Warn: We can't just trust them, leave them alone and expect everything to be fine. Letting Wall Street lobbyists write their own rules is how we got into this mess.
Offer solutions: We need strong laws to protect Wall Street from itself -- and all of us from Wall Street.
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ATTACKS AND RESPONSES
ATTACK: "The JP Morgan fiasco is proof that we need less financial regulation."
RESPONSE:
- Of course this is what the Wall Street lobbyists and the politicians they bankroll would say. They want us to just trust the big banks, leave them alone, and expect everything to be fine.
- But letting Wall Street lobbyists write their own rules is how we got into this mess and allowed the big banks to cost Americans millions of jobs. We won't let them take us down that road again.
- We need strong laws to protect Wall Street from itself -- and all of us from Wall Street.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- The 2008 financial crisis wiped out over 25% of Americans' net worth and led to the Great Recession in which we lost more than 8 million jobs.
- JP Morgan has lost $2 billion so far after making risky trades in "credit derivatives," the same kind of financial products it invented and which helped crash the economy.
- With $1 trillion worth of federally-insured deposits, taxpayers would be on the hook if JP Morgan fails or in the event of another financial crisis -- which the kind of risky trading behind the $2 billion bad bet makes more likely.
- This one incident by just JP Morgan cost four times the alleged cost of Wall Street complying with the reforms put in place in response to the financial crisis.
- From 2009 to present, JP Morgan alone has spent $23 million lobbying. Wall Street's key goal has been to water down the "Volcker Rule," which would separate the bank's federally-backed deposits from its casino side.
- Mitt Romney, whose super PAC is largely bankrolled by hedge fund and private equity moguls, and his Republican colleagues are fighting to repeal the Wall Street reform laws and deregulate the financial sector so Wall Street can write its own rules.
- Most Americans in all political groups are angry at Wall Street bankers, including 80% of Independents, 60% of Republicans, and 65% of Tea Party members.
