JPMorgan Chase also declined to sign the statement despite a personal request from senior Black business leaders to the chief executive, Jamie Dimon, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Dimon has publicly declared that he supports Black Lives Matter and made a statement on voting rights before many other companies, saying, “We believe voting must be accessible and equitable.”

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the bank said, “We publicly made our own strong statement last month about the critical importance of every citizen being able to exercise their fundamental right to vote.”

You know what he does want to talk about? Four hundred percent jumps in quarterly profits and all of the good times we’ve got ahead of us.

The gains came from JPMorgan releasing more than $5 billion it had set aside to cover potential coronavirus loan losses that have not materialized, as well as a continued boom in capital-markets activity….

“The consumer has so much money to pay down their credit card loan, which is good,” he said on a call with journalists, noting that consumers have $2 trillion more in their checking accounts than they did pre-pandemic. “Their balance sheet is in excellent, outstanding shape. Coiled, ready to go, and they are starting to spend money. That’s not the same as loan demand when the economy is weak.”

Goldman Sachs (which did sign the aforementioned voting rights pledge) also had quite the quarter—a “stunning” one, sayeth analyst Chris Kotowski—on the back of its investment bank. Given, however, how he feels about said I-bank, D.J. D-Sol is just gonna let the numbers do the talking.

An unprecedented boom in private firms merging with listed shell companies to go public helped Goldman earn handsome fees from such deals, resulting in a 73% jump in revenue from investment banking to $3.77 billion…. Goldman’s trading performance was equally impressive. Revenue from the segment jumped 47% to its highest since 2010 and was in line with the broader gains for trading desks across Wall Street.

And, you know, Solomon’s babies did pretty well for themselves, too. Not as well or as impactfully as the brothers Solomon can’t wait to kick out of the house, but gold star all the same.

Consumer banking revenue rose 32% in the quarter. The business is tiny compared to other large revenue generators at the firm, with consumer and wealth management representing just 10% of the total in the first quarter.

JPMorgan profits on capital markets in a cash-flush economy [Reuters]
Goldman Sachs profit soars on global deals frenzy, trading boom [Reuters]
Hundreds of Companies Unite to Oppose Voting Limits, but others Abstain [NYT]

At last, however, after all of those setbacks, Wohl and Burkman have, at last, found something he’s good at: Voter suppression. Having failed to destroy Robert Mueller, Pete Buttigieg, Anthony Fauci and Elizabeth Warren with made-up tales of titillating sexual impropriety—all of which undoubtedly bear more on the mores and mindsets of their authors than on their intended victims—the two seem to have set up a little robocalling operation, warning recipients—primarily people of color in at least five states—that if they voted, they’d be entered into a secret database that would be used to match them to outstanding arrest warrants and credit card debt. And we know that they allegedly succeeded at this beyond any and all expectations set by their previous follies because they’ve now been indicted for it.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced the charges, which include intimidating voters and conspiracy to violate election law…. “We’re all well aware of the frustrations caused by the millions of nuisance robocalls flooding our cell phones and landlines each day, but this particular message poses grave consequences for our democracy and the principles upon which it was built,” Nessel said in the release on Thursday. “Michigan voters are entitled to a full, free and fair election in November and my office will not hesitate to pursue those who jeopardize that.”

Conservative conspiracists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman charged in voter suppression probe [Politico]