Soothing Words on ‘Too Big to Fail,’ but With Little Meaning

Historically, finance’s share of the economy has been at about 4 percent. Today, it’s about twice that. And the peak occurred not in pre-bubble 2007, but in post-crash 2010, at just under 9 percent, according to research from Thomas Philippon of New York University. That represents a shift of more than $600 billion of wealth a year, as Wallace C. Turbeville, a former investment banker-turned-financial reformist, has pointed out.

 

In Extracting Deal From JPMorgan, U.S. Aimed for Bottom Line

“Unless you hold the executives accountable, it really is just the cost of doing business,” said Bart Naylor, a policy advocate at Public Citizen, who noted that the settlements hurt shareholders more than executives.

And during a conference call on Tuesday, Marianne Lake, JPMorgan’s chief financial officer, emphasized that $7 billion of the settlement was tax-deductible.