Old media is apparently still useful.

The big financial news this week is that JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion since the begining of April.  Apparently, the loss is the result of trading in credit default swaps.  Listeners to the "This American Life" radio show have known that credit default swaps are bad news for several years.   

Some are using the news as a chance to gloat.  I do not want, or intend, to do that as I assume that these losses probably mean that some innocent individual investors have lost money.  However, I was struck by one part of the conference call that JPMorgan's CEO had with analysts and reporters.  The CEO was asked to identify what JPMorgan should have been paying attention to in this situation.  The answer was "trading losses" and "newspapers."  Let that be a lesson to anyone who thinks that the only use for the newspaper is to line the cat litter box.