I know what Jamie Dimon wants from housing. But first, here is what he said he wants in a recent article from Business Insider:
“Seven major federal regulators and a long list of state and local regulators have overlapping jurisdiction on mortgage laws and wrote a plethora of new rules and regulations appropriately focused on educating and protecting customers. While some of the rules are beneficial, many were hastily developed and layered upon existing rules without coordination or calibration as to the potential effects.”The result is a complex, highly risky and unpredictable operating environment that exposes lenders and servicers to disproportionate legal liability and materially increases operational risks and costs.”
That appears to be a sophisticated analysis. He is the leading banker in the nation so who could find fault with the statement? Only, this was not the only statement he made. Other statements were very revealing.
He said that mortgages are unavailable for those without a perfect credit history:
“It’s noteworthy that those who lost access to mortgage credit are the very ones who so many people profess to want to help – e.g., lower income buyers, first-time homebuyers, the self-employed and individuals with prior defaults who deserve another chance.”
While there could be merit in giving someone a second chance at the mortgage game, is it even right to give JP Morgan and other banks a second chance? Do they deserve a second chance? The mortgage situation in Nevada, the hardest hit state, is still undergoing cleanup. You still see ads on TV, where attorneys ask, “Have you been the victim of a predatory loan?”
Dimon speaks of the shameful situation with the housing market now. I recall predatory loans as being a lot more shameful, in the not so distant past. The Big Banks funded retail predatory lending.
Investment banks Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan & Co., and Citigroup Inc. both owned and financed subprime lenders. Others, like RBS Greenwich Capital Investments Corp. (part of the Royal Bank of Scotland), Swiss bank Credit Suisse First Boston, and Goldman Sachs & Co., were major financial backers of subprime lenders.
