Jamie Dimon and the importance of having some stones

JP Morgan's CEO made headlines today by actually saying what everybody knows he must think, that Elizabeth Warren may not "fully understand the global banking system." Whether or not Dimon's suspicion is correct on the merits -- and I'm going to put my stake in the ground and say it is -- the news here is that he actually stood up to a politician who has been grandstanding at his company's expense. Few CEOs of public companies are willing to do that, mostly out of fear that the politician in question will find some way to retaliate, so it is refreshing to see Dimon turn "too big to fail" in to "too big to cow." It is also important, because political grandstanding without any resistance only begets more grandstanding, and that makes me despair for my country. Since meaningless pledges are all the rage, maybe we should demand that politicians take an anti-grandstanding pledge.

Now, if Dimon were willing to say something negative about Janet Yellen, who is JP Morgan's regulator, that would veer in to the realm of malfeasance, because only an idiot embarrasses his regulator.