JP Morgan Announces Massive Shrinkage. Why Ever Could That Be?

I have made special and numerous mention of corporate share buybacks over the last several years, and I have also noted why we are seeing an usually large amount of share repurchases rather than investment in growth and jobs.

Well, hot off the wires just now, JP Morgan announced another multi-billion dollar share buyback - $15 billion to be more precise. Our government has attacked and shat upon no industry so much as the banking industry and gone on to codify the rhetorical drubbing in the form of the Dodd-Frank banking "reform" bill. Well, the inevitable and entirely foreseeable has now happened. With nary a growth prospect and a stagnant, strangled business landscape, JP Morgan is returning - entirely responsibly and justifiably, I might add - oceans of unneeded capital back to its shareholders so they can seek higher returns with it in some industry and/or some country that doesn't crap all over investment capital.

UPDATE: US Bancorp announces an @$3 billion buyback.