EVENT

JPMorgan Chase acknowledges $2 billion trading loss

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, said Thursday that it lost $2 billion in the past six weeks in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money. The exotic financial investments got the world in trouble in 2008. The question a lot of people are asking now, did JPMorgan Chase learn nothing?

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I know the answer to that one. JP Morgan Chase learned a lot from the 2008 debacle. They learned that unlike the rest of us, if they gamble on irresponsible investments, the rest of us (taxpayers) will give them trillions of interest free dollars. They learnt that they can pull off the biggest heist in history and not go to jail. They may even be given a top position guarding our financial henhouse. Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, currently sits on the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Ironically, that's the very organization that is supposed to oversee his bank’s financial practices, the organization that is supposed to issue all sorts of regulations that control what his bank can do. nothing has It's also the very organization he has been lobbying to relax the rules about the bets he wants to make. What do you do with a guy like Diamond? In 2008 when high rollers like him nearly collapsed the economy, we were told we had to  "keep the talent."  Yet we insist on cutbacks and performance based pay for teachers. Apparently, those greedy characters who educate our children and brown bag it everyday are the real drag on our economy.  It seems to me that two billion dollars could hire quite a few teachers. Diamond called the trades his bank made "flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed and poorly monitored", but hey that's the kind of talent we just can't afford to lose.

This episode should be a red flag that four years after the 2008 meltdown the problem has not been fixed. As a matter of fact the problem has become worse. Remember "Too Big To Fail"? Well, the surviving mega banks are much bigger. Instead of breaking them up into smaller institutions, we have accomplished the opposite. The five largest banks, which controlled $6.1 trillion in assets before the collapse, by the end of 2011 had assets worth $8.5 trillion — equal to more than half of U.S. economic output.

The Justice Department is going to launch an investigation on the JPMorgan Chase fiasco. I doubt that Diamond and his colleagues are shaking in their boots considering it's the same government that failed to enact much of the Dodd-Frank bill over the last three and a half years.

I'm just an artist not a economist, but it seems simple enough to me that if the banks were to big to fail before, we might want to try breaking them up into smaller banks. And maybe while we're at it we could reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act. But at the top of the Big Banks' asset sheets are our politicians, so we won't be doing that. That means the recent JPMorgan thing is just a miniscule pre-bearer of what is to come.

So we know what the Wall Street fat cats learned from the 2008 meltdown. The rest of should learn to pay close attention to which politicians are doing what and let them know if they don't start working to protect our bottom line, there's going to be a very hostile take-over.

What One Piece Of Art Revealed

My new painting inspired by the Trayvon Martin tragedy called "A Tale Of Two Hoodies", has created somewhat of a stir. A popular subject of blogs, it has been noted more than 17,000 times over the weekend. Most enlightening were the many disturbing responses on my site revealing a nation that sadly hasn't come as far as I had thought.

The piece was meant to illuminate the travesty of racially profiling innocent children and call into question any role of racism in the interpretation of policy. Like all my art, the painting was meant to create a civil public discourse.  The opportunity to share views could and should enlighten and open minds.

Reminiscent of the reaction to my painting of President Obama titled "The Truth" in 2009, the reaction revealed a very fractured nation with great distain for other points of view. The piece depicts a KKK hooded police officer drawing his weapon on a small black child in a hoodie who is merely offering the policeman some generic candy. The people who were so enraged, never were able to quite understand that the painting while inspired by the Trayvon case, was not meant as a literal depiction of the incident , but representative of a broader problem. If the painting pondered the degree of racism in the country today, the reaction to it certainly answered the question. I was personally taken aback by the unashamedly racist comments made by so many. 

Based on the response I have received, (and this may not scientifically prove anything) the hatred and racism seems linked to party affiliation. My findings beg the question: Are conservatives more racist than progressives? And if so, why? Perhaps it is because they feel they are being forced by socialist entitlements to share their money with minorities who are on the dole. Maybe they think that minorities don't work as hard and want something for nothing … from them. That kind of thinking might make sense to some educated, fiscal conservative sitting in his cushy office who doesn't want to part with his "hard earned millions." But the socially conservative, beer drinking redneck enjoys the same entitlements. That guy is just ignorant enough to let the fiscal conservative use his racial prejudice against his own best interests. Incredulously, many of these hostile people feel like they are the victims.

I didn't go in with any pre conceived notions. I draw my conclusions from the responses that I have received, you can read them and decide for yourself at http://www.artandresponse.com/paintings/a-tale-of-two-hoodies.html.

Bill Cosby feels the Trayvon Martin case is about gun ownership, not race. As you can tell from my painting "A Tale Of Two Hoodies", I think it may be a little of both.

I was at Zuccotti and Union Square parks today in New York City in search of Occupy Wall Street protests. What I found (and didn't find) was discouraging.

First I went to Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the OWS revolution, to show my support. I'm very supportive when the temperature is seventy degrees or above. I journeyed far and came well armed with my Wall Street Wally pig mask and about 2,000 cards promoting "The Art Of Corpocracy" video http://artandresponse.com/corpocracy promoting action against the government's servitude to the 1%.

When I arrived at the hollowed destination, I found the block that was previously lined with protesters touting clever signs, now were lined with people holding signs selling bargain blackberry contracts. Turns out that Bloomberg only allows people in that park with signs that offer a 10% discount. Score it:Capitalism-1, Democracy-0

Taken aback, but undeterred, I traveled upward to Union Square Park where OWS had planned a protest in solidarity with the Million Hoodie March for Trayvon Martin. You would think the fact that that case concerned a (counterfit) cop killing a black kid (who was guilty of wearing a hoodie) without being held responsible would somehow temper Bloomberg's Anti-First Amendment Rights Brigade to tread lightly. Not so much. Before I arrived the police had stormed the protest, trying to close off the park with metal barricades. They arrested six people with what some might consider unnecessary force considering one woman was knocked unconscious and taken away in an ambulance. By the time I arrived there were a smaller group of protesters (50 or so) peacefully displaying signs and singing songs. Then came a brigade of blue surging in for no apparent reason to trample on the signs and look intimidating.

I find it discouraging that corporations have more rights than (actual) people and they won't let us protest it..

With Corporate personhood, bailouts, tax breaks for the rich and entitlement cuts for the rest, one thing is clear, class warfare has been waged. The corporate elite have taken command of our government and turned our leaders. America is still the land of opportunity ... for the very rich.

While we were sleeping, the rich and powerful have been manipulating the system to chip away at the working man by persuading our elected leaders to bust unions, change the tax code, loosen regulations and everything else that's good for their bottom line. Corporations now have more rights than individuals. Even George Orwell wouldn't have imagined it going this far. I don't know about you, but all this makes me a little grumpy. So what can we do about it?

As it so happens, I'm an artist who adheres to this Picasso quote. "Art is not meant to decorate walls. It is an offensive weapon in the defense against the enemy." So I'm fighting back with a video I posted on youtube called "The Art Of Corpocracy" http://artandresponse.com/corpocracy that utilizes my art to illuminate the government's servitude to the corporate elite. I'm asking all like-minded citizens (anyone making under a million a year or just believes in playing fair) to post it on facebook page, email it to their friends. "Why should I bother?" you ask. I'll tell you why.

The 1% spend their vast resources to promote their agenda and it's worked pretty good so far. After all, they have get half the country to vote against their own best interests. Don't think so? I'm sure you can find a redneck living in a trailer somewhere in Mississippi who voted for a Republican who supports a 15% capital gains tax and a reduction in Medicaid benefits. But Gomer figures the important thing is those homos won't be able to marry. They manipulate minds with FOX, Rush and now with another artist's video blaming President Obama for all the debt (over 3.5 million hits so far).

I'm fighting real hard here and can use a little back up. Help a brother in arms and maybe we can win a battle or two.