JP Morgan Chase Defeats Paulson & Taxpayers

It appears that Treasury Secrety Henry Paulson's $250 billion dollar cash installment is already looking like a scam. Unfortunately, if you believe this NYT recount of a recent JP Morgan Chase (JPM) conference call, even one of the best positioned banks in the land is sitting on their $25 billion dollar infusion, instead of lending it out. Apparently, they are still in bargain hunting mode. They believe the $25 billion "will help us ... perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling."

So, let me get this straight:

1. Paulson and Co. battle for weeks with the Senate and House to get a $700 billion dollar package passed, that is going to be used to buy up toxic assets from the banks... This gets the risky assets off the balance sheets and gives banks capital to start lending out to Main St. (small businesses, students, and purchases of homes and cars). Furthermore, this is an investment that will most likely be profitable for taxpayers. This sounds great!

2. With the first $250 billion, agreed to by Senate, Congress and W, Paulson instead decides to just "loan" the cash directly to the 8 US financial institutions who "need" it most (you know, like Wells Fargo and JP Morgan, who have publicly declared they didn't want the money). The thought here is that the stable banks will use the cash immediately to start lending again... Or as Paulson said, "Our purpose is to increase confidence in our banks, so that they will deploy, not hoard, their capital."

3. JP Morgan Chase, however, is in business to make money, and not act as a puppet of the government (shocker, right), so they've instead decided to hoard the capital, and potentially buy up more failing banks so they can one day become the biggest bank in the universe. The $25 billion is nice, but times are tough, so "loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit."!!!

SUMMARY: Taxpayer dollars are going to JPM coffers to GREEDILY buy more failing banks instead of flowing back into the desperately needy economy!!! I own JPM stock, for god's sake, and even I'm pissed at this. WTF are these people doing!?!

In other words: FAIL!