JPMorgan Chase recently posted $2 billion in trading losses. Mr. Jaimie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chief executive and a man considered one of the savviest bankers in the world, has dismissed the losses as "a tempest in a teapot." Given the scale of his bank's business, he is correct — at least when crunching the numbers.
But the problem is not the size of the loss, but the very fact that one of the world's top banks could fail so miserably while it was doing something central to its strategy and while it was, ostensibly, being overseen.
This episode is proof once again of the need for limits on the ability of banks to take big risks, incur bigger losses and jeopardize not only their existence but that of the financial system and the countries that depend on them.