Petition Demands Dimon Be Fired From Fed Board

Posted on Jun 26, 2012

Robin Hood Tax USA (CC BY 2.0)

Activists with the “Robin Hood Welcome Party” showed up for Jamie Dimon’s congressional hearing.

On Monday, economist Simon Johnson presented officials at the Federal Reserve with a petition containing 38,000 signatures appealing for the removal of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Dimon is one of six members selected by banks to sit on the nine-seat board governing the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Three directors are chosen to represent banks’ interests and three are chosen by banks to represent the public’s interest.

The petition’s signers assert that bankers cannot be relied upon to regulate their own businesses.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly

George Zornick at The Nation:

The essential conflict of interest is that the Federal Reserve is charged with maintaining the safety and soundness of Wall Street banks, and executives at those institutions often resist such changes in the name of riskier gambles and bigger profits. Moreover, in recent years the Fed has handed out over $4 trillion in zero-interest loans to many of those banks. (JPMorgan Chase received $390 billion in emergency funds during the bailouts, and $29 billion to buy Bear Stearns).

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