If there is one thing you can always count on from CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo,it's the fact that she is always going to carry water for her buddies over on Wall Street and her appearance on this Sunday's Meet the Press was no exception.
Bartiromo is apparently very distraught about the news that JP Morgan Chase is on the verge of having to pay a $13 billion fine, and may be facing criminal charges and other law suits as well. The reason she gives... job creation. That's right, never mind whether or not they broke the law and the damage that was done by the financial crisis. Laws are for little people, don't you know. According to Bartiromo, this is yet another reason for businesses to sit on their hands and hoard their cash -- they're all afraid of being prosecuted like Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase. Who knew so many more of them had a reason to worry about going to prison or being sued as well?
Bartiromo had some help from her enabler David Gregory, who also did his best to take up for poor downtrodden Jamie Dimon. How terrible that all of the mean old hippies are picking on him:
DAVID GREGORY: I wanted to introduce something, Maria. You know, we talk about big accomplishments in the administration, a second term agenda. Part of that agency we're seeing play out real-time with this big news people are waking up to about JP Morgan. A huge settlement, $13 billion with a B, in a tentative deal with JP Morgan to settle a lot of the civil litigation that responds to whether they sold subprime loans into the marketplace to Fannie and Freddie. But this goes to a larger point, which is this reckoning for Wall Street that's finally happening that a lot of liberals have been cheering for.
MARIA BARTIROMO: Yeah. I think that reckoning continues. This is worse than people expected. A lot of people thought it was $11 billion. It ended up at 13. Also very important here is the fact that they did not do away with the possibility of criminality.
DAVID GREGORY: Criminal-- yeah.
MARIA BARTIROMO: This is a major issue.
DAVID GREGORY: And this is JP Morgan, this is Jamie Dimon as CEO, who was viewed, frankly, as one of the most responsible players in the whole sub-prime mess, did not need federal bailout money, was a leader, did things the government wanted him to do in buying Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. And yet, they become a big target here.
MARIA BARTIROMO: Well, this has been one of the repercussions of the financial crisis. And that is the pendulum swinging a little far in terms of regulation. And this is the cost on business. And this is one of the reasons business sits on cash and is not creating jobs, because they worry what's around the corner.
As far as JP Morgan is concerned, this is going to be a big negative, I would say, because of that opening up to massive amounts of civil lawsuits, and more lawsuits, as a result of this potential for criminality. But certainly the regulation bite has become a lot bigger. And that has been a big issue for business. And that has kept business in its place in terms of the ability to hire more people.
DAVID GREGORY: All right, let me get a break in here. I want to come back and talk about more politics.
Here's more from The Guardian on the settlement: JP Morgan Chase on the verge of $13bn deal over bad mortgage loans:
Proposed deal with US government would not absolve the company from criminal liability, reports say
JPMorgan Chase has reached a tentative $13bn (£8bn) deal with the US Justice Department and other government agencies to settle investigations into bad mortgage loans the bank sold to investors before the financial crisis, a source familiar with the talks said on Saturday.
The deal, which would be the largest ever between the US government and a single company, would not release the bank from criminal liability for some of the mortgages it packaged into bonds and sold to investors.
That had been a major sticking point in the discussions, but the government refused to budge and JPMorgan felt it had no choice but to give in, according to a second source. Until recently, the most that JPMorgan was willing to pay was closer to $11bn.
The biggest US bank sidestepped the worst of the financial crisis but now faces more than a dozen investigations globally into everything from alleged bribery in China to a possible role in manipulating benchmark interest rates known as Libor.
JPMorgan investors have publicly supported chief executive Jamie Dimon, but privately many have expressed frustration at his run-ins with regulators. A Senate subcommittee report in March detailed how Dimon demanded that subordinates withhold data from one of the bank's regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Earlier this month, the bank said Dimon was no longer chairman of JPMorgan's main US retail banking subsidiary, which media reports said happened at the request of the OCC.
JPMorgan's board of directors has put pressure on Dimon to improve his relationship with government regulators and enforcement officials. Read on...
UPDATE: It seems Bartiromo has some company carrying water for JP Morgan Chase:
