The Art of Rubbing It In

For JP Morgan, pride goeth before the $2 billion trading fall – and schadenfreude from rivals comes after:

A huge portion of Wall Street’s banking model is built around the idea of, ‘I’m going to bet against my clients.’…and I see that and say, These are my clients! It’s my job to make sure my client makes money, and know that I’ll be rewarded for it.

That quote comes from Ed Clark, CEO of Toronto-Dominion Bank, or TD Bank, who revels in the description “old-fashioned banker.”  He gave an interview to Bloomberg TV’s Erik Schatzker in a piece on the risk-management superiority of our Canuck neighbors.

This kind of thing falls under the rubric of what CNN’s Lizzie O’Leary sassily identified last week as “Dimonfreude.” But it has perhaps a bit less impact when you count the Canadian government’s “liquidity support” to their banks – $114 billion at the peak – as a plain old bailout.