Concerned citizens marched on the JPMorgan shareholder meeting last week to express their outrage over the risks the bank takes and the losses it bestowed upon its shareholders. The only reason the citizens have any right to protest the actions of banks is that the government bails them out. These people should be protesting at the White House, the Congress & the Fed. The government is the one that uses force to steal our money to bail out private companies. The banks, like all economic actors, finds the highest reward, lowest risk (to them!) way to make money–perverse government incentives create moral hazards resulting in economic behavior that doesn’t reflect the true cost of the action. Stop government intervention and the system would be much more stable! (My blogpost on the subject touches on this as well as hour two of my May 19 show, which you can find at wsbradio.com).
In any case, I sincerely doubt these people are thinking that hard about things. Here’s hidden audio I came upon last year that demonstrates a high level SEIU organizer plotting a protest outside JPMorgan’s shareholder meeting to create a “Madison Moment” like the one Tea Party-types orchestrated in Wisconsin for reform of government employee benefits. In my opinion, this SEIU plan morphed into Occupy Wall Street, but I guess they couldn’t resist hassling JP Morgan since the occasion arose.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0PlElVWshk&feature=player_embedded]
