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Dear Mr. Berko: In April 2009, I bought 200 shares, at $32, of JPMorgan Chase, one of the biggest and most profitable banks in the United States. I’ve read your recommendations of other banks during the past few years, but you have never recommended JPMorgan Chase. It almost seems to be a no-brainer, so I wonder why you have never written about this classy blue chip American institution.

B.R.

Vancouver, Wash.

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Dear B.R.: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM-$54.70) is a bank run by a coterie of dancing pagans and a corrupt, depraved, libertine management team that flaunts its disdain for American consumers. It has 254,000 employees and more than $1 trillion in cash and has pocketed more politicians than the Pentagon has colonels. The company is run by the voluble and hugely overpaid James “Jamie” Dimon, a CEO without scruples. Jamie is one of the few CEOs who can thread a needle while wearing mittens and riding a camel at full gallop in a snowstorm at night. I fear people with that kind of talent because they think they are perfect and have a God complex. So, I’ve never recommended JPMorgan Chase, because management’s business ethics are anathema to me, and they should be to you. A recommendation would imply that I approve of the manner in which management comports its business activities.

Some people believe that the invisible hands of the Rothschilds, the Masons and the Illuminati were wild tales of world conspiracy theorists. I thought so, too, until the massive trillion-dollar Libor scandal broke last year and JPMorgan Chase was named a prominent participant. Certainly, Jamie had a few of his digits on those strings. The ensuing legal costs will run into the billions of bucks, and I can’t imagine what the financial penalties will be.

Jamie is an amazingly charming, disarming and multitalented man. He was also merrily at the helm when JPMorgan Chase was found guilty two years ago by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division of manipulating municipal bond prices and rigging bids that cost municipalities and investors billions of dollars. JPMorgan Chase paid multiple millions for that intentional faux pas.

And Jamie was joyfully steering JPMorgan Chase last year when his London Whale lost more than $6 billion of depositors’ money while placing (supposedly unauthorized) trades in various securities.

And Jamie was blithely captaining the ship when JPMorgan Chase duped investors into buying troubled mortgages that later imploded. The government contends that the company purposefully churned out mortgage-backed securities that couldn’t meet normal underwriting standards. The ensuing criminal and civil charges allege that the company sold securities that caused “roughly $22.5 billion in losses for investors.”

And Jamie was gleefully charting the course last April when the authorities accused JPMorgan Chase, a prominent player in the $595 trillion (that’s trillion with a “t”) derivatives market, of engineering a scheme to fix prices of interest rate swaps. The consequences are mind-boggling.

And on Jamie’s insouciant watch several years ago, JPMorgan Chase ripped off American consumers by actively rigging the aluminum, copper and coffee markets. The company artificially inflated prices by surreptitiously controlling the supply to generate billions of dollars in profits. Last June, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission $425 million in penalties, a pittance compared with the damages, to settle accusations that the bank manipulated energy prices.

According to FERC, between 2010 and 2011, JPMorgan Chase used improper and illegal bidding strategies to squeeze excessive payments from agencies that run the power grids in California and the Midwest, resulting in higher monthly power bills for those consumers.

Then you have JPMorgan Chase’s credit card fraud, identity theft fraud, personal loan fraud and securities fraud as Jamie lunched on pheasant and squab in the executive dining room. As the company contentedly raped the American public, its anointed board of directors effectively stroked members of Congress. Executives at certain levels of the financial food chain are immune to prosecution, though JPMorgan Chase will pay many billions of dollars in fines and legal costs.

JPMorgan Chase is an important member of the Wall Street mafia, as are Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and UBS. I’ve never recommended them either.

Address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, c/o The Daily Journal of Commerce, P.O. Box 8303, Largo, FL 33775, or email him at [email protected]. © 2013 Creators.com