Corporate

JPMorgan Chase & Co., which generated the most trading revenue among Wall Street firms last year, had the highest trading and counterparty losses of the biggest U.S. banks under the Federal Reserve’s stress scenario.

JPMorgan had an estimated $27.7 billion in projected losses from mark-to-market changes, credit valuation adjustments and counterparty default losses, according to the Fed results released today. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) had an estimated $27.1 billion of such losses in the testing.

"The whole perspective of how firms influence policy environments is a relatively new question to economists."

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and other good governance groups sent letters to members of Congress urgingpassage of the “Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act” (“STOCK Act”).   

Source: Common Cause | The venerable clean government organization, Common Cause, has an excellent, digestible report available on the politics—or the money in politics—concerning the “fracking” controversy. The report describes the problems with fracking:

An inside look at the real reasons for the once-beloved chain's demise

For the past decade and a half, Borders seems to have been in the business of making mistakes. Consider the company’s efforts to develop an online presence. Amazon was launched in 1995, and Barnes & Noble responded with its own website two years later.

The dream – or myth – of mobility was the glue that helped keep America together

In “The Broken Contract“, his essay in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, New Yorker staff writer George Packer argues that the source of widening US inequality is to be found when…

Organized money and the conservative movement seized the moment back in 1978 to begin a massive, generation-long transfer of wealth to the richest Americans.

HP board chairman Ray Lane is lashing out at critics who are pinning the blame for HP’s mess on the board of directors, who are described in this New York Times article as the “worst board in the history of business.”

Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz said more than 100 business leaders have joined his pledge to boycott U.S. political campaign donations.

Important discussions lie ahead on the road to Rio + 20 for the global investment community - UNEP FI Global Roundtable 2011, and GLOBE 2012.   

Banking and investment organizations worldwide are monitoring developments in the international financial markets preparatory to the Rio + 20 Earth Summit taking place in Rio de Janeiro, in June 2012.