Courtesy of Pam Martens
Presidential candidate Donald Trump and the mega Wall Street bank JPMorgan Chase share a common trait: they can conduct themselves in a manner that insults the values of a civilized society and instead of losing ground, their star rises – or so it appears.
Trump’s public vulgarity and anti-Presidential demeanor are perpetually on display at his Twitter page and in the Republican debates. In just the past month, Trump has called Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly “crazy”; boasted of the size of his “manhood” during a Republican debate; and promised to ramp up the use of torture – illegal under both domestic and international law.
The typically staid Senator Elizabeth Warren even lost her cool with Trump on March 21, Tweeting that “his insecurities are on parade: petty bullying, attacks on women, cheap racism, flagrant narcissism.”
In a new CBS News/New York Times poll released on Monday, only 24 percent of Americans, of which 85 percent were registered voters, had a favorable opinion of Trump. And yet, somehow, primary elections or caucuses in state after state show Trump as the winner on the Republican ticket.
Now consider the same kind of anomaly at JPMorgan Chase.
On the morning of May 20 of last year, JPMorgan Chase was charged with a felony by the U.S. Justice Department for its involvement in rigging foreign currency markets. That was its third felony count in the span of less than a year and a half. One would have expected the price of the stock to tank. The stock price of JPMorgan had closed on May 19, prior to the news, at $67.01. It closed on May 20, after the news, at $66.48. The public is being asked to swallow the idea that a criminal felony count at the nation’s largest bank, holding $1.3 trillion in the life savings of depositors across America, is worth a measly 53 cents.
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