By Ryan Grim / Huffington Post
JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, in a letter to shareholders, touched on a theme that critics of the Iraq war were highlighting more than a year ago: That spending on the war was damaging to the economy.
Dimon cited "an expensive war in Iraq" as one of the possible triggers of the economic collapse. Spending on the war ballooned the deficit and crowded out investment in domestic priorities. Meanwhile, the trade deficit soared.
"I suspect when analysts and economists study the fundamental causes of this crisis, they will point to the enormous U.S. trade deficit as one of the main underlying culprits. Over an eight-year period, the United Sates ran a trade deficit of $3 trillion. This means that Americans bought $3 trillion more than they sold overseas. Dollars were used to pay for the goods. Foreign countries took these dollars and purchased, for the most part, U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. It also is likely that this process kept U.S. interest rates very low, even beyond Federal Reserve policy, for an extended period of time."
Also, read Dimon's analysis in his letter to shareholders (PDF).
2 comments:
Dimon didn't tell his shareholder for 8 years as the Banks were robbing the US Treasury and he and other CEO's were getting millions in kick backs. Dimon never spoke of how much money Law Makers were given for their vote. Now it would have been nice for Dimon to give this enlighten news when it was happening as for 7 years Iraq was given 2 Billion dollars of taxpayers money a day. Dimon's a little late let's say 7 years to late with his new found information. Now I don't blame him for trying to save his job and that big fat bonus he gets for doing nothing but playing golf.
They should know they were part of it.
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