If you didn't know, now you do.
They got the data.
How socially involved do you want your bank to be? There are many things wrong with this JP Morgan report.
Take the paragraph that says this data: "A few dozen employees at the JPMorgan Chase Institute, the bank’s in-house think tank, have unparalleled access to the saving, spending and borrowing habits of the bank’s customers, stripped of names and other identifying details."
Sure it was collected anonymously. There are over 3,500 cameras in the city of San Diego alone. Why are they there, to track your every movement and in a growing surveillance-laden society this banking data was garnered without exposing the personal information to those doing the garnering.
The second point why is JP Morgan customers being used to define the rest of the economy? Do you bank there? One would hope not. The Federal Reserve has used the Institute’s research when weighing interest-rate decisions, according to people familiar with the matter. Institute researchers meet with Biden administration economists monthly, some of the people said, and helped measure the costs and benefits of dueling student-loan forgiveness plans.
It matters little that JP Morgan has branches all over the nation. So do other banks. This smacks of collusion and nothing close to more transparency from the Fed. It also exposes a huge element of too much ESG pressure on banks. ESG has become a metaphor for "wokeness." And don't let them get away with calling you a Trump supporter just because you have a different view.
That's become a shibboleth like the pandemic. It's the cause of everything. If they have to go to JP Morgan what the hell are taxpayers paying so much to fund all those economists at all those Fed banks? Close them down. Oh yea, how much if anything is the government paying Mr. Dimon and his in-house think tank for that data? It's so revealing.
How about a little transparency there for the public?
How pollical do you want your bank to be? Does that sound like disenfranchising voters? It also shows why people like JP Morgan Chairman Jamie Dimon are way to government connected and powerful.
JPMorgan is now using the data to shape economic policy. The bank recently paired the Institute with its PolicyCenter, created in 2019 to advocate for nonpartisan, data-driven ideas. (The PolicyCenter is separate from the bank’s government-relations team, which lobbies for policies that benefit JPMorgan.)
Read the above paragraph with tongue in cheek.
The Fed is owned by Wall Street big banks. The concept that it is independent and transparent will take a further blow when Mr. Biden and his political elves finish packing it later.
Transparent, this from an administration that is secretly in the darkness nightly flying illegals into your state and neighborhood.
Then came a pandemic that put millions of Americans out of work in a matter of days. Politicians and the lockdowns put people out of work not the pandemic and it happened over a time not a few days.
“Two of the north stars guiding us at this moment are how do we drive an inclusive recovery and how do we close the racial wealth gap,” said Ms. Greig.
How poetic. Close the Fed would be a decent start. Meanwhile, inflation continues its rampage and the inequality gap that many of these same folks instigated goes on.
The Institute is run by two economists: Fiona Greig, a public-policy expert, and Chris Wheat, a data scientist. They report to Heather Higginbottom, a former Obama administration official who heads the bank’s research and policy groups, as well as its philanthropic efforts.
This is a redundancy and pure bureaucratic baloney. And inclusive recovery would change the wealth gap and vice versa. Most of the money for it, however, as per usual, winds up in the bank accounts of the banks not the people.
Economists studying U.S. consumers have plenty of data at their disposal, but nothing quite like what they can get from America’s biggest bank. Peering into JPMorgan bank and credit-card accounts, researchers can match up inflows—paychecks, unemployment benefits—with outflows. That isn’t possible with the government’s broad unemployment and consumer-spending surveys.
This paragraph is laughable. The government has spent so much money on census reports and other economic paraphernalia to track people over the years and Jamie's bank has information that tops it all. It appears, as is usual, the government needs to ask those paraphernalia suppliers for rebates since they got ripped off.
Some of the rebate money could go to closing the inequality gap. It also does something these people don't want you to know, how much data these banks are collecting on you daily. And what are they doing with it? Can't have it both ways.
One final point here before we stop guffawing. If you, given all that's happened, were making a list of crucial matters during what has been a crisis for millions, how high in importance would you place or prioritize "measure the costs and benefits of dueling student-loan forgiveness plans."
After the election, Ms. Higginbottom’s group sent a paper to the Biden transition team with a series of policy suggestions, a first for the bank. It promoted the earned-income tax credit and pushed for more stimulus and student-loan forbearance. Baby bonds, government grants given to children at birth, and expanded job options for people with criminal records would reduce racial wealth disparities, the paper suggested.
“There is a desire for businesses to get more socially involved,” said Ms. Higginbottom. “We are doing it with data.”
All the above are excellent reasons for decentralizing. When is the last time big was better for you?
How JPMorgan Is Helping Washington Make Sense of the Pandemic Economy; The JPMorgan Institute uses account data to parse consumer financial behavior. It also is trying to influence economic policy.
Today 8:03 AM ET Editor's PicksPrint📷Stephen Voss for The Wall Street Journal
By David Benoit
The pandemic sent economists hunting for evidence of how people were coping financially. They found it tucked away in a tiny corner of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
A few dozen employees at the JPMorgan Chase Institute, the bank’s in-house think tank, have unparalleled access to the saving, spending and borrowing habits of the bank’s customers, stripped of names and other identifying details.
The Federal Reserve has used the Institute’s research when weighing interest-rate decisions, according to people familiar with the matter. Institute researchers meet with Biden administration economists monthly, some of the people said, and helped measure the costs and benefits of dueling student-loan forgiveness plans.
Economists studying U.S. consumers have plenty of data at their disposal, but nothing quite like what they can get from America’s biggest bank. Peering into JPMorgan bank and credit-card accounts, researchers can match up inflows—paychecks, unemployment benefits—with outflows. That isn’t possible with the government’s broad unemployment and consumer-spending surveys.
“Putting the two parts together has been something of a holy grail,” said James Poterba, the president of the National Bureau of Economic Research. The group’s researchers cited the Institute’s consumer-spending and unemployment data in papers on the pandemic’s effects.
JPMorgan is now using the data to shape economic policy. The bank recently paired the Institute with its PolicyCenter, created in 2019 to advocate for nonpartisan, data-driven ideas. (The PolicyCenter is separate from the bank’s government-relations team, which lobbies for policies that benefit JPMorgan.)
The Institute is run by two economists: Fiona Greig, a public-policy expert, and Chris Wheat, a data scientist. They report to Heather Higginbottom, a former Obama administration official who heads the bank’s research and policy groups, as well as its philanthropic efforts.
tethered to measurable outcomes What is good for the U.S. economy is good for JPMorgan. Banks prosper when businesses and consumers are healthy enough to spend and borrow. But executives say the Institute and policy groups have a broader aim: to deliver Chief Executive Jamie Dimon’s vision of government policy tethered to measurable outcomes.
“Two of the north stars guiding us at this moment are how do we drive an inclusive recovery and how do we close the racial wealth gap,” said Ms. Greig.
JPMorgan launched the Institute in 2015. Big Data was booming, but banks had yet to embrace the notion of turning their data into a public resource.
Gasoline prices were plunging That summer, the Fed was debating raising interest rates for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis sent them close to zero. Gasoline prices were plunging, but the central bank and other economists didn’t have a clear understanding of what consumers were doing with the money they were saving. The answer would shed light on the state of consumer confidence.
“It’s a little bit of a mystery,” then-Chairman Janet Yellen said at a Fed board meeting.
spending about 80% of their savings The Institute tallied customer gas spending to show the savings in aggregate and mapped where that money was going. They found consumers were The Fed raised interest rates in December spending about 80% of their savings, more than surveys had shown. The Fed raised interest rates in December.
unexpected medical costs The Institute’s early work helped lead to changes inside JPMorgan. The bank launched an automatic saving program to encourage customers to put aside more money for rainy days. It cut health-insurance deductibles for Chase employees making less than $60,000 a year after an Institute report showed racial disparities unexpected medical costs could set back a family’s savings by 12 months. A study of $30 billion push to help close the racial wealth gap racial disparities in consumer finance informed the bank’s $30 billion push to help close the racial wealth gap.
Then came a pandemic that put millions of Americans out of work in a matter of days. The economy ground to a halt and Institute researchers watched spending on JPMorgan credit cards plunge across all income levels. At the same time, bank-account balances began to rise—particularly among lower-income households. The swings were so enormous that Institute researchers wondered if there was a glitch in the data.
Brad McConnell, chief executive of Allies for Community Business in Chicago, asked the Institute for help targeting small-business aid during the lockdowns. JPMorgan supplied a breakdown of cash balances at small businesses by ZIP Code in Chicago and other cities, something Mr. McConnell had never seen.
“It was a point of emphasis on our team to make sure we were dedicating additional time to the neighborhoods that data showed us,” Mr. McConnell said. His group delivered $400 million in small-business emergency loans and grants in 2020, compared with just $4 million in 2019.
traveled to Washington Mr. Dimon used Institute data when he traveled to Washington in the fall of 2020 to persuade Trump administration officials the economy needed a second round of stimulus. Consumers who had built savings during the first round of payments had spent them, the data showed.
After the election, Ms. Higginbottom’s group sent a paper to the Biden transition team with a series of policy suggestions, a first for the bank. It promoted the earned-income tax credit and pushed for more stimulus and student-loan forbearance. Baby bonds, government grants given to children at birth, and expanded job options for people with criminal records would reduce racial wealth disparities, the paper suggested.
“There is a desire for businesses to get more socially involved,” said Ms. Higginbottom. “We are doing it with data.”
All the above are excellent reasons for decentralizing. When is the last time big was better for you?
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