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shah269

Now the crime is worth it

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OK! So here it is,

JPMorgan has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle charges it misled investors in the sale of a complex mortgage-backed security, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday.

Well that's nice!

But wait!

JPMorgan -- the most profitable U.S. bank -- made a $5.6 billion profit in the first quarter of this year.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/21/news/companies/JPMorgan_SEC_settlement/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

WOW! I mean really! WOW! Now I want to work for these guys when i get my masters! Wooh! I think I'm in freaking love!

Where do I sign up! These guys have it figured out! They made that kind of money and paid how little? WOW! This is what I call one well organized well run company. To defend it self so well.
MAN!
EPIC!
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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JPMorgan -- the most profitable U.S. bank -- made a $5.6 billion profit in the first quarter of this year.



Assuming you have the money to invest and could afford to write off this investment if the stock tanked, there is nothing stopping you from becoming a stock holder in this oh so profitable company.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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Nope don't have that kind of money.
But what I do have is 10 years of project management experience and soon to have an MBA thus I will gladly work for them.
With that kind of revenue and that small of a hit from the feds, they must compensate their managers accordingly.
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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Managers, not so much....

Board members, now that's a different story....:S

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

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I'm sure it's better than what I'm getting now.
And unlike where I am now they reward hard work with real money...not POS coins.
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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The punishment should fit the crime, and that's apparently what the Feds thought "fit".

There's nothing in the law that says that if you commit a crime, that you should be forced to forfeit everything, just because you have much more than what punishment "fits".

If you get a jay-walking ticket, should the judge be allowed to take all of your paychecks for an entire year?

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Nope don't have that kind of money.
But what I do have is 10 years of project management experience and soon to have an MBA thus I will gladly work for them.
With that kind of revenue and that small of a hit from the feds, they must compensate their managers accordingly.



Don't be so sure they would hire you. The world is full of well qualified MBA's that are unemployed and looking for work. It is still very much a buyer's market.
HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

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Don't be so sure they would hire you. The world is full of well qualified MBA's that are unemployed and looking for work. It is still very much a buyer's market.



They probably would not hire him since he is on record on the internet slagging the very organization he says should hire him. We are leaving digital foot and finger prints all over the place these days in our modern world.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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Don't be so sure they would hire you. The world is full of well qualified MBA's that are unemployed and looking for work. It is still very much a buyer's market.



He also seems to have trouble understanding the number of business lines that this company has, thinks they paid $150M to make 5B.

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Don't be so sure they would hire you. The world is full of well qualified MBA's that are unemployed and looking for work. It is still very much a buyer's market.



They probably would not hire him since he is on record on the internet slagging the very organization he says should hire him. We are leaving digital foot and finger prints all over the place these days in our modern world.


Nope I'm saying that in this day and age you want to work for a company that knows how to bend the rules and if things go bad they have the leagal team to put up a fight.

I agree with you, even with 10 years of experience this new "Normal" does make it a buyers market.

Not fun.
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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They probably would not hire him since he is on record on the internet slagging the very organization he says should hire him. We are leaving digital foot and finger prints all over the place these days in our modern world.



Not to mention that from Shah's digital footprint he is a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen. :(
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

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He also seems to have trouble understanding the number of business lines that this company has, thinks they paid $150M to make 5B.






Where in actual fact they made a multitude of the $5 billion and paid a $150 million fine.

From a pure numbers perspective and taking ethics out of the equasion, they would do the same thing again and again and again.

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He also seems to have trouble understanding the number of business lines that this company has, thinks they paid $150M to make 5B.






Where in actual fact they made a multitude of the $5 billion and paid a $150 million fine.

From a pure numbers perspective and taking ethics out of the equasion, they would do the same thing again and again and again.



I agree. Not only that, but a slap on the wrist would actually encourage them to do it again.

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The punishment should fit the crime, and that's apparently what the Feds thought "fit".

There's nothing in the law that says that if you commit a crime, that you should be forced to forfeit everything, just because you have much more than what punishment "fits".

If you get a jay-walking ticket, should the judge be allowed to take all of your paychecks for an entire year?



Shah's actually making, through ironic language, a good moral point re: JP Morgan benefiting from the risk-versus-reward ratio in this case.

No, of course a jaywalker shouldn't forfeit a year's pay. But with ordinary schlubs (including most individual "white-collar" criminals), most sentencing judges do see to it, one way or another, that criminals' penalties offset whatever profit they might achieve from their crime. As a matter of public policy, that's a good thing. JP Morgan apparently escaped that dynamic, and that's unfortunate.

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He also seems to have trouble understanding the number of business lines that this company has, thinks they paid $150M to make 5B.



Where in actual fact they made a multitude of the $5 billion and paid a $150 million fine.

From a pure numbers perspective and taking ethics out of the equasion, they would do the same thing again and again and again.



I agree. Not only that, but a slap on the wrist would actually encourage them to do it again.



Exactly.

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most sentencing judges do see to it, one way or another, that criminals' penalties offset whatever profit they might achieve from their crime. As a matter of public policy, that's a good thing. JP Morgan apparently escaped that dynamic, and that's unfortunate.



Not necessarily.

The line of work for which they were fined 150M was just one small segment of their business. What no one has stated here yet is how much profit they made from that line. It could be that the 150M fine does indeed take everything that they earned in that unethical line. And maybe more. Stay tuned...

150M is one heck of a big fine. I'm sure the company would like to be able to keep that.

Just because other lines of business, separate from the one that was deemed to be unethical, continued to make good money, doesn't mean that the company isn't being punished properly.

So as long as the penalty is appropriate for the particular line of business which was deemed unethical, than the punishment is just. It doesn't matter what all the other business lines made.

Let's say an auto dealer sells you a used car which turns out to be a lemon, and they knew it was a lemon. The appropriate punishment might be to refund your purchase prices, plus fine the dealer an additional $5,000. Justice done. But should the court also be able to take all the profits from the other used car sales which were done ethically, along with new car sales, and the service department too? I think not. They weren't part of the scam. And just because the dealer continues to show an overall profit for the year, doesn't mean that he wasn't punished sufficiently for the intentional sale of the lemon.

Does that encourage them to keep selling lemons? No, because they would rather not lose that $5,000 punitive award over and above the cost of the lemon. Likewise, if JP Morgan made $100M from their unethical practices, then a $150M penalty is appropriate, regardless of how much profit the company made as a whole. And I'm sure JP Morgan would much rather keep all that money, then pay it out to a court, so the motive is provided to change their ways.

That's my theory of justice in this case. Now, let's dive back into the initial news story for some actual facts:
"The $153 million settlement will make the investors whole, according to the SEC. As part of the settlement, JPMorgan agreed to improve how it reviews and approves mortgage-backed securities. JPMorgan said it ultimately lost $900 million in connection with the securities..."
So, JP Morgan not only didn't make any money, they lost $900M in the deal, and on top of that, they had to pay back $150M to the investors, so that none of them were at a loss. That seems fair to me. The victims were made whole, and the company lost almost a billion dollars. That ain't pocket change.

I know this idea doesn't comport with all the big-business-haters out there, but we shouldn't allow such emotions to override fair justice.

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Let's say an auto dealer sells you a used car which turns out to be a lemon, and they knew it was a lemon. The appropriate punishment might be to refund your purchase prices, plus fine the dealer an additional $5,000. Justice done. But should the court also be able to take all the profits from the other used car sales which were done ethically, along with new car sales, and the service department too? I think not. They weren't part of the scam. And just because the dealer continues to show an overall profit for the year, doesn't mean that he wasn't punished sufficiently for the intentional sale of the lemon.



Nice example, but let's change it a little to reflect what really happens:

The car dealer has 100 of those lemons on his lot on purpose. he has bought them for $1,000 each, but is putting them on the books as representing a value of $20,000 each.

He now uses the $2million book value to secure an operating loan for $1,000,000, which he uses to do legitimate business with.

He uses $100,000 of that loan to repeat the process, and on and on.

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If you get a jay-walking ticket, should the judge be allowed to take all of your paychecks for an entire year?



Well, if my paychecks were the result of my jaywalking, yes.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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Nice example, but let's change it a little to reflect what really happens:

The car dealer has 100 of those lemons on his lot on purpose. he has bought them for $1,000 each, but is putting them on the books as representing a value of $20,000 each.

He now uses the $2million book value to secure an operating loan for $1,000,000, which he uses to do legitimate business with.

He uses $100,000 of that loan to repeat the process, and on and on.



Ooooooooo...nice! You got me thinkin'......
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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If you get a jay-walking ticket, should the judge be allowed to take all of your paychecks for an entire year?



Well, if my paychecks were the result of my jaywalking, yes.



But that's not the case here. The sale of these securities in question were just one small offering amidst the overall business of JPMorgan overall.

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Except it was used to finance other parts of the business. So, you can't really see it just as a seperate business silo.



They LOST $900 million on the venture. How could that finance something else?



hush, now. This isn't a facts based discussion. This is about bad bad banks.

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