[ackidacki]

It's pretty bad if you ask me. A governments job is to follow the law too and not use its discretion in 'unwritten law' that is secretive.

No problem if they publicly said they would do this, but this way is precisely the problem of developing countries. You wouldn't think it would happen in America.

[intended]

This is a financial paper championing it’s core audience.

For example it makes no mention of the harm caused 10 years ago in 2008, and the causal link between bank behavior and the final disaster.

Instead it is painted as an unrighteous limit to the banks natural path, using hidden tools to curb their growth.

Wsj, Bloomberg etc would assume that profitable growth at any cost is good (except of course at the cost of bad PR).

Regulations and limitations are bad and simply evil barriers to firms manifest destiny.

Don’t put much stock in it.

[hueving]

No, it does not excuse the behavior of the banks. The point is that the regulatory behavior was bad, not that it wasn't punishing a real crime.

It would have been significantly better if they announced publicly that JPM was going to have it's growth restricted because of reason X. This would have acted as a deterrent to other banks, sent a message to the public that the banks were indeed being punished, and avoided the image of a secret governance process.

Everyone who reads these publications is well aware of the financial disaster so it doesn't need to be reiterated on every article because the knowledge is assumed.

[intended]

Disclosure is what happens all the time. I havent really heard of a recent or distant event where it was the norm to not disclose SEC actions. (barring some privacy clause or agreement reached via settlement)

Most likely, and I say this as an opinion, several of the banks they bought in 2008 were restricted from expanding until their house was in order.

These moves were, with 100% certainty, would have been announced and published at inception.

And no, the meaning of "financial disaster" is VERY different depending on which side of Fin services you stand on.

To many banks and bankers, the debacle is a failure of market participants - the cost of living in such exalted times. More regulation would only hamper future efficiency and delicious growth to shareholders.

For main street, this was a watershed moment where they saw that banks were a force unto themselves.

Their market niche so critical, that letting them continue more necessary than justice - overturning a basic tenet of American expectations (bad firms fail, merit rises).

"too big to fail", is the shadow of "too big to care".

Main street does not read Bloomberg or WSJ, so they tailor their articles to their audience's bias.

[intended]

Curious why this has been downvoted, I’d prefer understanding than assuming what the error was.

[qaq]

? JPM was actually cleaning up it's holdings of risky junk and taking write downs long before 2008. Posting poor results compared to peers but this allowed them to be in fairly good shape in 2008.

[specialp]

Well their job (The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency[1]) by law is to regulate banks for systemic risk. Recall that this same government bailed out the banks due to systemic risks. JP Morgan is then participating in risky activities and wants to expand thus becoming more important in the banking system. The government pushes back as it has had transgressions.

The whole "unwritten rule" thing is kinda nonsense. The OCC which was preventing the expansion was chartered to ensure the soundness of the banking system. That is pretty arbitrary and they have the authority to arbitrate on that. That sounds like they can use their discretion.

What you would think would not happen in America is that the government bails out private banks that behaved badly. If it were truly American capitalism they would fail. Banks would then not be able to become so large due to people and banks not wanting to have too much liability with any one institution. So it is inconsistent to have a system where the government cannot use their discretion in the growth of banks, yet be on the line for a huge bailout to stop the economy from collapsing when the banks get too greedy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Comptroller_of_t...

[ackidacki]

I think you're mixing up the OCC with the Fed.

[aldoushuxley001]

I can't believe you're being downvoted. The HN hivemind is the worst part of HN.

[guelo]

The law says that the regulator has a bunch of power to regulate the banks. They are following the law and the constitution, all of it. Stop making up bullshit conspiracy theories.

[hueving]

Ad hoc, secret regulatory actions might be allowed, but it's a surfire way to breed corruption since unfair enforcement becomes extremely difficult to detect.

[jayd16]

Lots of court filings and records are sealed. Its really not surprising at all. It's not really unwritten law just because it wasn't public.