‘People Are Furious with Wall Street'
The $2 billion trading loss at JPMorgan Chase raises questions about how banks control their risks, whether government regulations are strong enough or whether - as Sen. Bernie Sanders puts it - Wall Street controls Congress. House Republicans, for example, on Wednesday rejected calls from Democrats for stricter oversight of Wall Street.
Sanders told Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Situation Room that the government must do a better job regulating banks. He said it is a conflict of interest for JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon to simultaneously sit on board of the New York Federal Reserve, which regulates banks. The senator is drafting legislation to outlaw such fox-in-the-chicken-coop arrangements. He also called for breaking up JPMorgan, the country's biggest financial institution, and the handful of other banks that dominate the nation's home loan and credit card business. The big banks are bigger today than before the 2008 financial crisis, when they were bailed out by Congress and the Federal Reserve. The Fed alone provided $390 billion in near zero-interest loans to JPMorgan. "People are furious with Wall Street," Sanders said.
