Buffett wants Jamie Dimon as Treasury secretary

Warren Buffett believes JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon would be the best pick for Treasury secretary.
On the Charlie Rose show Monday, Buffett was asked what kind of message it would send if President Obama picked Jamie Dimon or another Wall Street banker to succeed Timothy Geithner, who has expressed a desire to leave the post after Obama's first term.

"I think he'd be terrific," said Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500), about Dimon. "If we did run into problems in markets, I think he'd actually be the best person you could have in the job."

Buffett added that Dimon would have the confidence of world leaders if he were appointed to the Treasury post.

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Confidence of world leaders = translation: They know him well as a fellow master criminal.

Relations with the Obama Administration

Dimon is a Democrat and worked in Barack Obama's adopted hometown of Chicago.

After Obama won the 2008 presidential election, there was speculation that Dimon would serve in the Obama Administration as Secretary of the Treasury. Obama eventually named the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner, to the position

Following the acquisition of Washington Mutual by JPMorgan Chase, Obama commented on Dimon's handling of the real-estate crash, credit crisis, and the banking collapse affecting corporations nationwide, including major financial institutions like Bank of America, Citibank, and Wachovia (now Wells Fargo).

"You know, keep in mind, though there are a lot of banks that are actually pretty well managed, JPMorgan being a good example, Jamie Dimon, the CEO there, I don't think should be punished for doing a pretty good job managing an enormous portfolio.[32]"

Dimon is influential in the Obama White House with close ties to some there, including former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.[33]

Dimon is one of three CEOs—along with Lloyd Blankfein and Vikram Pandit—said by the Associated Press to have liberal access to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.[34][35]

On the May 15, 2012, episode of ABC's The View, Obama responded to a question from Whoopi Goldberg regarding JPMorgan Chase's recently publicized $2 billion trading losses by defending Dimon against allegations of irresponsibility, saying, "first of all, JP Morgan is one of the best managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we've got"

Federal TARP Funds

As head of JPMorgan Chase, Dimon oversaw the transfer of $25 billion in funds from the U.S. Treasury Department to the bank on October 28, 2008, under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).[25]

This was the fifth largest amount transferred under Section A of TARP[26] to help troubled assets related to residential mortgages.

It has been widely reported [27] that JPMorgan Chase was in much better financial shape than other banks and did not need TARP funds but accepted the funds because the government did not want to single out only the banks with capital issues.

JPMorgan Chase advertised in February 2009 that it would be using its capital-base monetary strength to acquire new businesses.[28]

President Obama has accused Mitt Romney of raking in profits from investing in companies that ship American jobs overseas, but according to his most recent financial disclosure, he and First Lady Michelle Obama have hundreds of thousands of dollars in a mutual fund that has large holdings in corporations that outsource jobs.