海角大神

The dog that didn鈥檛 bark this week, let alone bite, was the President鈥檚 response to JP Morgan Chase鈥檚 bombshell admission of losing more than $2 billion in risky derivative trades that should never have been made.

鈥淛P Morgan is one of the best-managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion,鈥� the President said on the television show 鈥淭he View,鈥� which aired Tuesday, suggesting that a weaker bank might not have survived.

That was it.

Not a word about Jamie Dimon鈥檚 tireless campaign to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill; his loud and repeated charge that the Street鈥檚 near meltdown in 2008 didn鈥檛 warrant more financial regulation; his leadership of Wall Street鈥檚 brazen lobbying campaign to delay the Volcker Rule under Dodd-Frank, which is still delayed; and his efforts to make聽that rule聽meaningless by widening a loophole allowing banks to use commercial deposits to 鈥渉edge鈥� (that is, make offsetting bets) their derivative trades.

Nor any mention Dimon鈥檚 outrageous flaunting of Dodd-Frank and of the Volcker Rule by setting up a special division in the bank to make huge (and hugely profitable, when the bets paid off) derivative trades disguised as hedges. 聽

Nor聽Dimon鈥檚 dual role as both chairman and CEO of JPMorgan (frowned on my experts in corporate governance) for which he collected a whopping $23 million this year, and $23 million in 2010 and 2011 in addition to a $17 million bonus.

Even if Obama didn鈥檛 want to criticize Dimon, at the very least he could have used the occasion to come out squarely in favor of tougher financial regulation. It鈥檚 the perfect time for him to call for resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act, of which the Volcker Rule 鈥� with its giant loophole for hedges 鈥� is a pale and inadequate substitute.

And for breaking up the biggest banks and setting a cap on their size, as the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve recommended several weeks ago.

Wall Street鈥檚 biggest banks were too big to fail before the bailout. Now, led by JP Morgan Chase, they鈥檙e even bigger. 聽Twenty years ago, the 10 largest banks on the Street held 10 percent of America鈥檚 total bank assets. Now they hold over 70 percent.

This would give Obama a perfect way to distinguish himself from Mitt Romney 鈥� who has pledged to repeal Dodd-Frank altogether if he鈥檚 elected President, who has also been raking in more than $20 million a year through financial games, and who shares the same prevailing Wall Street view聽of the economy as profits to be maximized while people are minimized (to Romney, corporations are people).

But the Obama campaign has so far chosen to attack Romney鈥檚 character rather than his place in the new American plutocracy, with ads highlighting the jobs that were lost when Romney, as head of Bain Capital, took over a Midwest steel company.

It鈥檚 the same personal attack Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry leveled at Romney. But Gingrich and Perry had little choice. They didn鈥檛 want to criticize the system that allowed Romney to do this because their party celebrates no-holds-barred free-market capitalism.

Obama does have a choice. He can assail Romney鈥檚 character but he can also take on the system that allows private-equity managers, as well as Wall Street鈥檚 biggest banks, to continue to make huge profits at the expense of average Americans. Romney is the poster-child for the excesses of that system, just as is Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase. 聽聽

We are still at the very early stages of the 2012 campaign. There鈥檚 still time for Obama to come out swinging 鈥� not only at Romney but also at the system of which Romney is a part, and to base his campaign on policies that will make that system work for ordinary people. 聽Let鈥檚 hope he does.