Jamie Dimon may present himself as a apologetic CEO, but that is not his true face.

The Jamie Dimon Apology Tour is in full swing.

Perhaps you caught the first stop on this weekend’s Meet the Press. The chairman of JP Morgan Chase is trying to play us for suckers, publicly apologizing for his bank’s $2 billion loss.

He called it an “egregious mistake”. He claims he want to get rid of “Too Big To Fail”, and that he supported “portions” of the Dodd-Frank rule.

It might be one of the best acting performances I’ve seen all year. I think his chances of taking home an Oscar are all but guaranteed.

Maybe he had David Gregory fooled, (The NBC host’s lack of tough follow-up questions would seem to indicate it) but I am not buying it.

The reality is had JP Morgan not lobbied so hard against Dodd-Frank, and paid the lobbyists as much as they did, Dodd-Frank would have been much, much tougher, and Dimon would have $2 billion more in his coiffures.

It’s irony in its purest form.

This loss, which came on some very risky trades, is a perfect symbol of Wall Street’s hubris and greed. And it just goes to show you that the big banks have learned nothing from the crisis of years past.

And neither has Dimon. His apology on Meet The Press was the vocal equivalent of crocodile tears. He is another Chameleon, another Two-Face, putting on a public show for the masses, while privately lambasting anyone who is really looking to end “Too Big To Fail” when he thinks we are not paying attention.

I have to give credit to Gretchen Morgenson and the New York Times for helping expose Dimon as a hypocrite. Just a month ago, at a dinner for some JP Morgan’s wealthiest clients in Dallas, the Times reports Dimon attacked two men who are really trying to bring the banks back down to a manageable size.

One of them is Paul Volcker, the ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose Volcker Rule could have very well prevented JP Morgan from engaging in the type of risky investments that lost them the $2 billion in the first place.

The 2nd is Richard Fisher, president of The Dallas Fed, whose annual report I praised here, who has openly called for a break-up of the big banks, like JP Morgan Chase.

Dimon called the men’s arguments against the large banks “infantile” and “nonfactual”, and Morgenson alleges he further lambasted Fisher, to the shock of many of the guests.

Dimon will be in Tampa tomorrow for JP Morgan’s annual shareholders meeting, and it’s a shame most have already placed their votes, because if they had not, I’m sure they would reconsider approving Dimon’s lofty salary.

Dimon must really think we are suckers if thinks we will accept his phony apology. He is still trying to save face and present JP Morgan Chase as a healthy company, but if you think this $2 billion loss is an isolated incident, think again.

The big banks have made tons of bets simply to increase its bottom line, it’s just this time they were exposed reaching into the cookie jar yet again. Except this time there weren’t any cookies for them to grab.

Maybe this loss will not have a lasting impact on our financial markets, but the next one very well might. And that is why the average American needs to be paying attention to these types of risky bets.

The next bad bet could be ten times bigger, and could drag down the entire economy with it, creating a systemic collapse far worse than anything we’ve seen to date.

It will most certainly happen again if the government does not reel them in. I think people are ultimately going to put their faith in government regulation, there simply is no other way of dealing with this. And it is the legislature’s job to do so.

Our government must step up. Last week Republicans shot down a bill that would have fully funded Eric Schneiderman’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force. Just as with the original version of Dodd-Frank, the tools were set into motion, but have not come to fruition.

If the rug keeps being pulled out from meaningful regulation, they will never have the tools to pursue vindication and justice.

From The Trenches,

Roy Oppenheim

Long before the Florida foreclosure meltdown and “double sold mortgage” became a widely used term, I represented a commercial pilot for a major airline who owned real estate in the Florida Keys. This client had a great house but wanted to live closer to mainland Florida so that he could be closer to work.

His decision? To sell his house. Nothing unusual… right?
Back then it took a few months to find a buyer, for the buyer to find a mortgage and then a few more weeks to close.

As the closing agent at Weston Title, my staff requested a pay-off letter from the lender and – to our utter surprise and the first time in my career – two banks lay claim to the loan. In other words the originating bank had sold the loan at least once, or twice, or maybe even more. Who really knows?

But as this client’s real estate defense counsel we could not figure out who owned the loan. Well… the real estate client lost the sale. We advised for him to rent out the property and place the monthly mortgage payments in escrow. He basically followed our advice, save the escrow.

Soon after, the banks started foreclosure. It became ugly and quite a mess. We counter-claimed and got real nasty. Even the judge and mediator could not believe the story. How could a well respected national bank have lost control of their real estate collateral and literally throw their good customer, a well respected professional, under the bus without any concern?

The banks ended up suing each other in federal court. It took years for the matter to resolve itself. In the interim, my client’s credit went down the tubes, his wife got terribly sick from the stress and little did I know it would take until now for me to start connecting the dots.

Yes we settled… my client was appropriately awarded damages, the house eventually sold, and I was paid well for my efforts too! This scenario should have been a one-time case in my career… an honest mistake by a large bank that mishandled the matter. Ok. That is how I viewed this case for ten years. Well I was wrong.

That was then…this is now.

What we had was the “tippy tip” of a massive iceberg completely submerged and covered by a real estate market that had run amuck due to unfettered greed, poor regulation, complacency, and out right corruption.

So you say what is he talking about? The story is slowly breaking… It started this past Sunday in Gretchen Morgenson’s column on the front page of the New York Times Business Section. She alleges that due to “sloppy bookkeeping” surprise, a few sub-prime mortgages, or for that matter, mortgages were maybe sold more than once into investment pools.

WHAT?? Just bad paperwork?? Fat chance!

According to the well-respected foreclosure defense attorney, April Charney, quoted in the Times piece, and with whom I spent eight hours with in a foreclosure crisis seminar yesterday, these loans were sold systematically and more than once into different investment pools.

It was simple. No one was checking… no one really cared. All incentives, all the way down the line, encouraged this trangressive behavior. Remember how Wall Street bonuses were always paid at year’s-end not after a loan was seasoned? Meaning after a borrower has paid on the loan for a year or two! In fact, on Wall Street, a loan was seasoned and bonuses paid all the way down the line after a borrower made even one payment!

Do I hear Madoff on steroids? Maybe? Maybe definitely! Maybe that is why Madoff is still at home and not in jail. What does he really know about a ponzi scheme that makes him look like yesterday’s news?

Bear Stearns in the fall of 2007 started seeing the writing on the walls. Internally warning of “double sold mortgages.” Well, I guess they rang the alarm a little too late.

In fact, Aunt Fanny and Uncle Freddy are refusing to buy back loans unless the lender can prove they, and only they, own the loan. That means the lender needs to produce the original note along with all the assignments appropriately endorsed. Shouldn’t be hard?

Why then, should the federal government all of a sudden be concerned if the lender has the note? Judges, until recently, didn’t seem to take notice, except for a few bankruptcy judges in California. The answer is simple. They are slowly catching on that the new money in the investment pools was simply being used to pay for loans that did not exist.

While the party music played and everyone kept on dancing… then all a sudden, the music stopped… oops not enough chairs for everyone.

NBC Nightly News new media journalist Mara Schiavocampo will be exploring these issues deeper this week. So, I guess you can say you heard it here first — from the trenches.