Game Changer

 
Those IMF bureaucrats completed their weighty meeting last week in Washington and though much of the hand wringing centered on Deutsche Bank's problems, here' one of the take aways you want to note.

U.S. bankers attending the IIF meeting were far more upbeat than their European counterparts.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Morgan Stanley head James Gorman and Citigroup boss Michael Corbat, did their version of the "Three Amigos," taking to the stage together to talk up the strength of the U.S. consumer and their own roles in the global economy.

In a separate session, Goldman Sachs Group President Gary Cohn said the U.S. banking system was in the "best shape it has ever, ever been by far."

Like their European rivals, many U.S. banks are struggling to get shareholder returns above their cost of capital, but they are making more progress because they wrote off larger portions of their bad loans earlier – enabling them to return to growth more quickly – and most of their crisis-era litigation costs are behind them. The U.S. economy is also improving at a faster clip than Europe.

You should note the part about they wrote off "larger portions of their bad loans earlier--enabling them to return to growth more quickly--and most of their crisis-era limitation costs are behind them."

What this really translates into is they can get back to business as usual and repeat the whole mess over again. Just remember bail-ins or bail-outs costs everybody, not just shareholders. Recall too that white collar crime always gets off easier than the blue collar stuff.

Britain's vote to exit the European Union, known as "Brexit," is another headwind facing international banks, with the UK financial industry risking a loss of up to 38 billion pounds ($48.34 billion) in revenue if the country has only limited access to the European Union's single market, according to one study.

"The big winner for Brexit will be New York; you'll see more business moving to New York," Gorman said at the IIF meeting.

The competition from technology companies in banks' traditional markets, such as lending and payments, has also ramped up the pressure to change. In the pre-crisis days, banks would have merged to cut costs, but regulators are now much less in favor of allowing the creation of big, cross-border lenders which could disrupt markets if they got into trouble.

If New York will be, as is suggested here, the big winner, why are these Wall Street bankers, including Dimon, crying so loudly about Brexit?  Voltaire suggested following bankers if you see one jumping out of a window because there's most likely a profit in it Today, anytime you a banker approaching, you need to watch your wallet closely.

The term these elitists use for game changer, and it's a premeditated pejorative, is populism.

yahoo.com/news/banks-ponder-meaning-life-deutsche-agonizes-