JPMorgan Chase accused of rigging electricity prices; they'll pay the fine !!!

catch22

Check the story link in Hank's post below. The one I initially placed is now gone.

The "disgusting" continues.....

How in the hell are the young'ins in this country today supposed to continue to have a good moral character that was first built within their family; whilst looking around at some of the clowns, criminal and otherwise, in politics and the financial world?

Yes, I know the answer.

No less, whatever proves to be true to the linked story; still just disgusting to consider.

What ever happened to a good public hanging?

Update: 8:25 am Bank agrees to pay $410 million fine and not fight allegation.

And JPMorgan/Chase continues to want me for a customer. I think not.

Hogan

The Individuals who benefited, mainly upper management, should be held responsible. Whatever happened to the personal responsibility they so readily espouse suddenly it becomes the collective who must pay.

VintageFreak

And last week it was Goldman Sachs rigging price of Aluminum by hoarding it in warehouses and "complying" with regulations to move it out of warehouses only to move it back and forth between warehouses.

And they will settle for 10 cents on the dollar without admitting any wrongdoing. Therefore, there is no precedent established as to the number of offenses they commit, so no one ever goes to jail.

However, this is not what is the most abhorrent thing about our capitalistic market system. What is, is that this is not capitalism. Worse, people like us have to invest within this system because that is the only licensed gambling outlet we have where we hope the shop may have a moment where it is busy celebrating to such an extent, it forgets to rig the game, and maybe, just maybe the probability of us winning a round or two will approach 50%, and then maybe we will win one round, and maybe that will be enough to buy us a big mac (since real food will be too expensive anyways) once a day, so we may continue our pathetic existence until we are, one way or another put out of our misery.

This is not a pessimistic view. It is a realistic one. That is the only way I can make myself wake up in the morning. Hope is a good thing. Delusion is not.

MaxBialystock

Take the mother lovers, attach a ball and chain to each of them, and drop them into the sea. Disgusting is a good word. Empty shirts without a soul, without a heart, without a conscience: now, there's an apt description. Sub-human vermin also is apropos. Anything for a dollar. Or millions of dollars. No character, no integrity. They suck fleas off of dead rats. They would do anything for money. "Money-sluts."

hank

Price rigging? ... Shocked! ... Been checking 3 major airlines serving our neck of the woods for trip down to Fla next winter. Now ... how do all 3 manage to come up with the SAME (lowest) price within a few pennies of each other, for the SAME destination (through different hubs), on the SAME days --- and manage to consistently do so day after day?

Just a different take (outa left field:-), but should that "diversified income & growth" fund in your IRA be loaded with shares of electric utilities ... might it change your perspective just a little on such accusations (which, of course, have yet to be proven in court)? (Added: CNBC is reporting they've settled out of court. Not a lawyer - but probably something short of an admission of guilt.)

Couldn't get Catch's link to work. Here's another article.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/JPMorgan_Chase_rigged_California_electric_prices_federal/20130730_51_e2_washin9141?subj=51

bee

Many of these stories remind me of an important concept I came across when reading about the sugar industry and its successful lobby efforts to profiteer off the US sugar consumer. Of course, many other profiteers are positioning themselves to take advantage of the capitalistic system as well. This little understood concept has to do with "dispersed cost and concentrated benefit".

One aluminum can at a time...one Kilowatt at a time...one pound of sugar at a time...one toll charge at a time...one mutual fund fee at a time...one local, state, federal tax (take yout pick) at a time...one bank fee at a time...one insurance premium at a time...all of these are dispersed costs that funnel and concentrate the benefit into a single trough like drops of rain into a single rain barrel.

Some have a legitimate rationale (taxes, tolls, ER, insurance) that we still don't fully agree with. Some are purely orchestrated by miscreets until they are caught like the examples above. Most successful schemes are lobbied in the halls of government as bills that quietly become part of a law which place customer on the wrong side of the law. Now when we finally disagree or revolt by not paying these dispersed costs we quickly get in trouble, not the micreet.

So at the core of many of these financial schemes is a method to disperse costs so that no one notices at best and no one complains (revolts) at worse, while quietly concentrating financial benefits into the pockets of the very few schemers. When these schemes are enacted into law, we make our capitalistic system even more inefficient with the drag of non-productive costs.

Lawyers circle around all of this financial road kill adding costs to the non productive side of the equation.