But the fundamental truth here is the one known since Adam (Smith, that is) and amplified by the great financial economist Hy Minsky: humans underprice risk.  Their proclivity to do so increases as the business cycle progresses and confidence takes over (remember, JP’s bet was unwound by the fact that the economy wasn’t as strong as they thought).  The advent of a global derivatives market with notional trades in the trillions greatly amplifies the risks.

The fact that humans like Jamie Dimon—he who presided over JP’s self-proclaimed “fortress balance sheet”—he who inveighed against financial reform as imposing unnecessary oversight on such skilled risk managers as he and his staff—fall prey to this fundamental truth only underscores the lesson of this episode in financial hubris.

And that is this: financial markets are inherently unstable.  They will neither self-correct nor self-regulate.  Their instability poses a threat to markets and economies and people across the globe.  Therefore, they need to be regulated.  That’s not to say that anyone knows the best way to do this yet in order to balance the necessity of oversight with the dynamics of the markets.  We don’t know where to set the speed limits.  It must be an iterative process.