Simon Johnson: Jamie Dimon ("Obama's favorite banker") - the most dangerous man in America [View All]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-johnson/jamie-dimon-the-most-dang_b_524170.html

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Jamie Dimon is by far the most dangerous American banker of this or any other recent generation.

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Dimon fully understands -- although he can't concede in public -- the private advantages (i.e., to him and his colleagues) of a big bank getting bigger. Being too big to fail - and having cheaper access to funding as a result -- may seem unfair, unreasonable, and dangerous to you and me. But to Jamie Dimon, it's a business model -- and he is only doing his job, which is to make money for his shareholders (and for himself and his colleagues).

Dimon represents the heavy political firepower and intellectual heft of the banking system. He runs some of the most effective -- and tough -- lobbyists on Capitol Hill. He has the very best relationships with Treasury and the White House. And he is determined to scale up.

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If we don't find our way to a modern version of Teddy Roosevelt, Jamie Dimon -- and his successors -- will lead us into great harm. It's true that, after another crash or in the midst of a Second Great Depression, we can reasonably hope to find another Roosevelt -- FDR -- approach. But why should we wait when such a disaster is completely preventable?