Yesterday, cocksure JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon testified before the Senate Banking Committee about JPM’s $2 billion in credit-default swap trading losses in its London branch. Anyone expecting some heavy criticism and difficult questions was disappointed—the Senate Banking Committee gave Dimon a very public handjob.

Tuesday JPM’s stocks was trading as low as $32.56 after a bad few months. And, no surprise, shares were trading at $34.84 during the testimony and are now trading at $34.43 as of the writing of this article.

It’s likely that Senate Democrats and Republicans were rather weary of creating a high degree of anti-Wall Street sentiment in an election year. None of them wanted to have their line of questioning send JPM’s share prices downward, as it would be reflected in Wall Street’s performance on a more general level. The committee testimony was thus all about perception, which allowed Dimon to come out of the privy smelling like a rose.

Be that as it may, if the government isn’t going to hold JPM’s feet to the fire over $2 billion in trading losses using the very same financial instrument (credit-default swaps) that triggered 2008′s economic tumult, who will?

Free market purists will say that consumers have the power to regulate in this regard by taking their business elswhere, but this is bullshit. Granted, JPM makes a great deal of money in consumer lending, but it makes even more in financial markets. And its decisions in financial markets affect credit availability, which nearly everyone agrees is critical to economic strength. If these decisions are reckless and irresponsible, as we saw time and again throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, not just national but global economies can be convulsed and sent spiraling downward.

Which is why Dimon should have been laid into more aggressively by Senators—well, at least by those to whom he hasn’t given campaign donations.

The most revealing moment of testimony, however, might have been when Dimon said “we didn’t understand the risks.” No, Dimon and JPM knew the risks, but they gambled anyway. They got caught with their pants down and Dimon is now lying about how it happened. History repeated itself with the London office’s credit-default swap gambles. It mirrored the activity in the housing market casino created by Wall Street.

And Dimon is right when he says “I can’t publicly defend the trade,” for he and JPM’s lobbyists vigorously fought against the Volcker Rule, succeeding in watering down the provision, which directly led to the $2 billion in losses. So when he says ”We made a mistake. I’m absolutely responsible. The buck stops with me,” one knows the humility is all artifice and illusion. He and JPM knew exactly what they were doing.

What a fuckhead. And, remember, this fuckhead and President Obama are good chums.

Hope.

[Mark Wilson/Getty Images]