Jamie Dimon To Benefit Most From Banking Crisis

Former Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) CEO Greg Becker sold $3.6 million worth of shares on February 27, just days before the bank disclosed a large loss that triggered its stock slide and collapse.

Photo Insert: Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the biggest Wall Street bank, will likely make a killing because depositors in small and medium-sized banks are now fleeing to the safety of JPMorgan and other giant banks that have been deemed "too big to fail."

Over the previous two years, Becker sold nearly $30 million of stock, former US labor secretary Robert Reich wrote for DC Insider of Raw Story. But Becker won't rake in the most from this mess.

Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the biggest Wall Street bank, will likely make much more.

That's because depositors in small and medium-sized banks are now fleeing to the safety of JPMorgan and other giant banks that have been deemed "too big to fail" thanks to the government having bailed them out in 2008.

Last Friday afternoon, the deputy Treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, met with Dimon at his office in New York. He asked Dimon whether the failure of SVB could spread to other banks.

"There's a potential," Dimon responded. Dimon knew such contagion would mean vastly more business for JPMorgan. Recall that the 2008 financial crisis generated a gigantic shift of assets to the biggest Wall Street banks, with the result that JPMorgan and the other giants became far bigger.

In the early 1990s, the five largest banks accounted for only 12% of US bank deposits. After the crisis, they accounted for nearly half. After this week, they'll be even bigger.

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