Dear Commons Community,

Several news and media outlets are reporting that President Barack Obama in referring to JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion loss on Monday, said the bank’s massive failure proves why Wall Street reform is necessary.

“JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is,” Obama said during an interview on ABC’s “The View”. “Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting.”

Dimon, who appeared on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday, told host David Gregory he had been “dead wrong” to dismiss concerns about the banks questionable trades.

“We made a terrible, egregious mistake,” Dimon said. “There’s almost no excuse for it.”

Obama said the bank’s mistakes exemplified the reasoning behind his administration’s Wall Street policies.

“We don’t know all the details,” Obama said. “It’s going to be investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street reform.”

The president’s comments came the day that Ina Drew, a top executive who worked for JPMorgan for three decades, announced her retirement. Drew supervised the trading desk responsible for the loss.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post is reporting that the United States has the best higher education system in the world, according to a new ranking released Friday by university network, Universitas 21.

The group said their researchers looked at the most recent data from 48 countries across 20 different measures, including investment by governments and private sector, research and the production of an educated workforce, international networks and diversity. Population size was accounted for in the calculations, a news release said.

This is the first time Universitas 21 has created these rankings.

The rankings did not factor in affordability or cost of attending college.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that China’s Internet censors have added “New York University” to their list of blocked search terms, according to China Digital Times. Last week, NYU’s law school offered the blind civil-rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng a visiting-scholar position. Previously, Mr. Chen had taken refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing after escaping from house arrest. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused American officials of interfering in China’s domestic affairs. NYU’s offer helped solved the diplomatic impasse. On the popular Sina Weibo microblogging service, searches for “New York University” drew denial-of-service messages on May 10, reports China Digital Times. Other terms banned since the diplomatic row began, and still blocked, include Mr. Chen’s name, and more than a dozen nicknames for him such as “sunglasses brother,” and the name of the U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke.

Tony