by Tanta on 6/01/2007 04:53:00 PM

Via Reuters:

NEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co. is downplaying its role in subprime lending even as spectacular flameouts in that sector have turned the Wall Street bank into one of the biggest originators of risky mortgages.

"We don't do much in the subprime business -- at all," JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon told investors earlier this month at the company's annual meeting. "It will be a good business, by the way."

The King Is Dead. Long Live the King!.

In other banking news, via the Boston Globe:

ASHLAND -- In a scene reminiscent of the Cartoon Network bomb scare that paralyzed the Boston area in January, police shut down a strip mall yesterday in this small western suburb after employees at a Bank of America branch mistook a botched fax for a bomb threat.

Frustrated shop owners said the branch overreacted to the strange fax, which turned out to be an in-house marketing document sent by the bank's corporate office.

Frankly, that's the first I've ever heard of anyone actually reading a fax from corporate marketing. Guess it wasn't such a hot idea.

And via the Associated Press:

ATLANTA - On an episode of A&E's popular reality series "Flip This House," Atlanta businessman Sam Leccima sits in front of a run-down house and calls buying and selling real estate his passion.

Now authorities and legal filings claim that Leccima's true passion was a series of scams that included faking the home renovations shown on the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never owned.

You mean this whole flippin' thing was just some kind of made-up teevee ripoff? I wonder if the bondholders are going to sue A&E . . .

Happy Friday afternoon, all.