Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Even in its panicked state, Goldman was still Goldman, and Dimon didn’t want a war. Within half an hour he had Steve Black and Bill Winters, co–chief executives of JP Morgan’s investment bank, send out a companywide e-mail: We do not want anyone at JP Morgan capitalizing on the irrational behavior that’s going on in the market toward some of the U.S. broker-dealers. We are operating as business as usual with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as counterparties. While they are both formidable competitors, during this period, we do not want anyone approaching their clients or employees in a predatory way. We want to do everything possible to remain supportive of their business and not do anything that would impact them negatively. We do not believe anyone has engaged in any inappropriate behavior, but we want to underscore how important it is to be constructive during this time. What is happening to the broker-dealer model is not rational, and not good for JP Morgan, the global financial system or the country. —