The derivative hedging game played by JPMorgan Chase is no different than that played by AIG in 2008.
Yet Jamie Dimon tells us that JPMorgan had merely “made a terrible, egregious mistake.”  He might as well have said that the bank was wrong to keep raising in a poker game when it was apparent it should have folded.
And why was JPMorgan busy betting in the first place -- right after our economic meltdown, and while fighting government regulation?
One answer is that it knew it could bear the gambling losses.
That’s right.  With $2 trillion at hand, JPMorgan can yawn when $3 billion goes down the tube.
Nonetheless, Dimon tells us that he sees no problem with the government dismantling big failing banks.  This is good to know because the government might have to start dismantling big banks before they fail -- and before they have another chance to take us down with them.
The important lesson from the JPMorgan fiasco is not that stringent regulation is still needed to reign in on derivatives, but that banks big enough to remain standing after taking huge hits are ripe enough for us to chop down to size.