Simon Johnson's argument against the financial reform bill simply doesn't hold water.

[ProSense]

JP Morgan Responds To Financial Reform: The Poison Pill Strategy

By Simon Johnson

While the financial reform negotiation process grinds to its meaningless conclusion, the real action lies elsewhere – in Jamie Dimon’s executive suite.

Dimon, the head of JP Morgan Chase, is apparently seeking to (a) become more global, (b) move further into emerging markets, and (c) become more like Citigroup.

This is terrific corporate strategy – and very dangerous for the rest of us.

Jamie Dimon clearly wants to become too big to fail, too interconnected to fail, and – above all – too global to fail.

He knows that the reform package will, among other (very small) things, create a resolution authority that will give the government more power – in principle – vis-à-vis failing financial institutions in the future. This is a central part of Tim Geithner’s vision for financial stability.

But Mr. Dimon also knows – as a board member of the NY Fed and sometime White House/Treasury confidante – that a US resolution authority will do precisely nothing to make it easier to handle the failure of a large global bank, e.g., Citigroup, doing business in over 100 countries.

The reason global megabanks will get bailouts in the future is simple – policymakers will fear the chaos that would ensue when competing bankruptcy claims swarm over a defaulted institution, much as happened for Lehman (e.g., in London) in September 2008.

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His entire argument is based on what he thinks the regulators will not do, not what they will be required by law to do.

What's the point of regulating anything?

Financial reform: "No Taxpayer Funded Bailouts: Clearly states taxpayers will not be on the hook to save a failing financial company or to cover the cost of its liquidation. "

More on the bill