JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is hopping mad at the short-sellers out there whose fearmongering, he and embattled Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld think, had a lot to do with the demise of Bear Stearns. “I think the Securities and Exchange Commission should investigate it, okay?” he told Charlie Rose last night. “I think if someone knowingly starts a rumor or passes on a rumor, they should go to jail.” And he doesn’t mean pansy, poncho-making prison, either.
“This is even worse than insider trading. This is deliberate and malicious destruction of value and people’s lives,” Dimon said. “They shouldn’t go to jail for a short period of time. If I was the SEC, I’d find out who made the money and I’d investigate like they do when they come after us all the time, e-mails, phone records, you name it, and I’d find out.”
We like to imagine that somewhere out there someone heard Jamie Dimon saying these words and felt it was his responsibility to rise up and do something. Not the SEC, but a righteous citizen: a guy with a closetful of army uniforms, an off-white Crown Victoria, and an unshakeable desire to pursue justice. Someone who will refashion himself as a Mortgage Vigilante, in the manner of the awesome DEA vigilante recently arrested in Missouri, who will subpoena those phone records and examine those hard drives in pursuit of justice for home owners and Wall Streeters alike. Are you out there, guy? Jamie needs you. And so do we.
SEC Should Investigate Bear Collapse: J.P. Morgan CEO [Reuters]
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