J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on the lessons of Fan and Fred

'The Largest Failure'. WSJ Editorial
J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on the lessons of Fan and Fred.
WSJ, Apr 18, 2009

'Perhaps the largest regulatory failure of all time." That's how J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon describes the "inadequate regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" in his annual shareholder letter, released this week.

Mr. Dimon devotes nearly a quarter of the 28-page letter to analyzing what caused the panic of 2008, and he hands out plenty of blame all around. But he calls it "amazing" that Fannie and Freddie were allowed to grow "larger than the Federal Reserve" thanks to Uncle Sam's implicit guarantee of their obligations.

Mr. Dimon gets obviousness points for observing that Fan and Fred's regulator "clearly was not up to the task," but he's too polite, or cautious, to say why: For years, the two mortgage giants twisted arms on Capitol Hill to keep that regulator weak, and Fan and Fred's Beltway friends obliged. Today, of course, all those same enablers claim that they really did want better regulation, and it was the "other guys" who stood in the way. But that wasn't the tune that Barney Frank, for example, was singing when he advocated "rolling the dice" on Fan and Fred's "safety and soundness" in exchange for more money for affordable housing.

In his letter, Mr. Dimon raises a cry of "never again." But as we move toward creating a "systemic risk regulator" that supposedly will bring to heel two dozen of the largest and most politically savvy financial institutions in the world, the lessons of Fannie, Freddie and their hapless regulator remain all too relevant.