Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission reached a $154 million settlement with JP Morgan Chase for allegedly misleading investors in a CDO deal involving the hedge fund Magnetar. Jesse Eisinger, whose work with Jake Bernstein in exposing how Magnetar exacerbated the financial crisis won a Pulitzer Prize, was a guest on PBS NewsHour to talk about the settlement.
In the interview, Eisinger explains that while this is a big victory for the SEC, the amount of the settlement may not be much of a deterrent. “It adds up to fractions of bonuses that these bankers made and these banks made in profits in 2007. So this is chump change for Wall Street. And, in fact, Wall Street top executives have not been held accountable to any significant degree for any of their actions or their banks’ actions in the lead-up to the financial crisis, when often they misled their own clients. So I think people may be frustrated.”
Watch the interview below and check out Eisinger and Bernstein’s “The Wall Street Money Machine” series for more details.
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