How Banksters Really Play the Game (and Pillage Taxpayers in the Process)

A top bankster got personally involved in  getting the $1.1 trillion spending bill passed last night.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon personally called members of the House yesterday to urge them to vote in favor of the bill. It doesn't appear he cares about the $1.1 trillion in government spending allowed by this bill, according to WaPo.

Dimon's focus was likely on a provision quietly inserted into the legislation without any prior debate that repeals the Dodd-Frank banking reform’s laws “swap pushout” rule, which bans banks from using taxpayer funds to trade highly risky financial instruments known as swaps.

WaPo explains:

"[T]hat provision" isn't just any provision. It's one that goes to the heart of the Dodd Frank reform because it would let big banks undertake risky activities with funds guaranteed by the federal government and, hence taxpayers...The nation's biggest banks -- led by Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America -- have been lobbying for the change...

[T]he regulatory change could also boost the profits of major banks, which is why they are pushing so hard for passage, said Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

"It is because there is a lot of money at stake," Johnson said. "They want to be able to take big risks where they get the upside and the taxpayer gets the potential downside," he said

Congressman Kevin Yoder, a Kansas Republican, inserted the provision into the bill, but he didn’t actually write it. It was written by Citigroup.