Who does our Treasury Secretary speak to most of the time? Yup. You guessed it. It's the big three bankers.

Who are they? First, we have Lloyd Blankenstein, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE GS). Then we have Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Company (NYSE JPM) and then CEO, Vikam Pandt of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE C).

You are probably also wondering how do we know this? The Associated Press did a review of Geithner's calendar under the Freedom of Information Act.

In his first seven months on the job, Geithner made at least 80 contacts with the "big three." Not only that Geithner jumps to the phone when they call. They are the dominant players on Wall Street who can move markets and even economies.

Consumer bankruptcies have already spiked more than 30% this year, and it looks like the trend shows no signs of flagging. The American Bankruptcy Institute predicts that the tally could hit 1.4 million by the end of the year. So, although there are some experts signaling that the economy is on the upswing, the downstream effects of bankruptcy on consumer spending and corporate balance sheets are going to make it difficult for the market to turn the corner.

In July, more than 126,000 people filed for bankruptcy protection, and the filing rate was up 36.5% for the first six months of 2009 relative to the same period in 2008. The problem is affecting every rung of the social ladder.

Imagine this:Your bank holds $81 trillion dollars worth of derivatives which is 40% of all the derivatives held by all the banks. Actually this is not a fairy tale. JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) does own this staggering pile of derivatives. What those derivatives contain in the way to toxic assets is a mystery because all of these transactions are "off the books."

Now enter the government that wants to regulate the derivatives market and force more transparency in reporting transactions, which heretofore have been kept secret. One of the proposals is to have each transaction go through a clearing house so that there would be a visible record of the securities and the players.

Well, now it seems that even the big boys have to play by the rules. What do I mean play by the rules? Apparently, if a bank wants to pay back the TARP monies, they must demonstrate that they can raise equity.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) were the only two banks that did not raise equity.

So there was an exchange between regulators and Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan's chief executive, who said that he did not believe that ability to tap capital markets should have been relevant for his bank. He went on to say, "Any argument you can think of, you could assume we made with our regulators. And as you could also expect, they won.The primary reason was access to equity capital markets, and its hard for me to imagine that really applies in the JPMorgan case." So it seems that the exchange was spirited to say the least.

Stocks felt choppy all day, although the late day move and afternoon stability allowed stocks to have another solid day. Housing starts added some strength, and the buyers are still deciding they need to be in rather than out of the market.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,746.51 +25.07 (0.29%)
S&P 500 945.36 +2.49 (0.26%)
Nasdaq 1,836.89 +8.21 (0.45%)

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JP Morgan Chase & Company (NYSE JPM) held its annual shareholder meeting with Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer holding court.

Among his jabs against the Administration he complained that the rules against hiring foreigners was a "complete and utter disgrace." We might ask Mr. Dimon if he plans to hire another Chinese mathematician such as David X Li, whom JP Morgan Chase hired in 2000. Mr. Li developed a formula that created a single number from which traders bet billions of dollars in the past decade in derivatives which eventually brought the country to its knees when the housing bubble burst. This may help to explain why JP Morgan Chase has $87.7 trillion of derivatives "off the books." We might ask Mr Dimon to disclose the exact position in derivatives that he holds "off the books." Wouldn't that make fascinating reading?

Today looked like the traditional broke American spender of the past. Lower income, increased spending. We also saw waves of profit taking ahead of the weekend as the last two weeks have been some of the best moves seen in years in years. Here were today's unofficial closing levels:

Dow 7,776.18 -148.38 (-1.87%)
S&P 500 815.94 -16.92 (-2.03%)
Nasdaq 1,545.20 -41.80 (-2.63%)

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52-Week Lows

Citigroup Inc, (NYSE C), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE BAC), and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE JPM) are the crybabies of Wall Street. They are complaining vigorously to Congress about the tax on their bonuses.

Here's a sample of their complaints: Bank of America's Kenneth Lewis said the tax is "unfair" in a memo to his employees. Citigroup's Vikram Pandit said his bank is "working in every appropriate way with policymakers." Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan held a conference call with executives and said that he is working with lawmakers.

Today ended up on an unofficial closing bell basis (official DJIA level may change as late as 4:30), but that was not the case all day and the "win" felt more mixed than like another consecutive rally.

But a win is a win no matter how sloppy it gets. The US Deficit has reached a record $765 billion in just five months. And here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 6,930.40 +3.91 (0.06%)
S&P 500 721.36 +1.76 (0.24%)
Nasdaq 1,371.64 +13.36 (0.98%)

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Following a meeting with CEO Jamie Dimon on Feb. 6, Citigroup analyst Keith Horowitz believes that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) could be among the first banks to repay its indebtedness under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

"Clearly there is a risk of future government interference, which is why we believe management would like to get out," noted Horowitz. However, while Dimon thinks banking industry returns will be compressed during the intermediate term due to the government's involvement, he doesn't see any significant changes to JPMorgan's long-term outlook.

Yesterday, business reporter Charlie Gasparino wrote in The Daily Beast that JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) and its CEO Jamie Dimon, would be the next big financial institution for fall apart. He wrote, "But Dimon is feeling that heat, nonetheless, from analysts, who believe his firm will post a loss this quarter, the first since he became CEO."

Well, maybe so, but throwing stones at the people who have done well in an industry that has not is easy, perhaps too easy. If JP Morgan does lose money, it will join a long line of other firms that have done so. If its loss is modest, it will still be better off than most if not all of its peers.

Banks may be the most heavily followed companies on Wall Street. Analysts and the press crawl over the PR and financial reports, looking for bad news. That means the market should be relatively efficient at putting values on them, especially after two years of humiliation in which they got those values wrong.

If the Street is right, JPM still has a brighter future than rivals Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). Over the last six months, JPM shares declined about 10%. BAC is down almost 40% and Citi is off almost 60%.

It may be a little early to write that JPM obit.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Wonder what happened to the hard earned money you paid in taxes? I can't account for all of it but $540 billion that went to six financial institutions is being used, in part, to operate 27 corporate jets. I may be the only one who feels this way, but I don't think the survival of the global economy depends on using taxpayer money to pay for financial executives to fly on their own corporate jets.

Here are the six financial institutions with the amount of taxpayer money they received and the number of corporate jets they're still flying:

• American International Group Inc (NYSE: AIG). $150 billion, seven corporate jets
• Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C). $330 billion, four jets. (The $330 billion includes Citi's initial $25 billion in TARP money plus its more recent $305 billion in loan guarantees.)
• Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC). $25 billion, one jet
• Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). $25 billion, nine jets -- its CEO Ken Lewis used $127,643 worth of its corporate jets
• JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) . $25 billion, four jets -- its CEO Jamie Dimon's personal use of its corporate aircraft totaled $211,182 in 2007
• Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS). $10 billion, two jets -- its CEO John Mack's personal use of its corporate aircraft totaled $358,882 in 2007

This post is part of our feature on Money Winners of 2008. See all 20.

This past year has been a pretty rough one for CEOs in general. The stock market has tanked since October of last year, dragging down strong companies' share prices to some extent and weak companies' even further. It has been even worse for most financial executives, who have been ousted as their stocks fall to roughly zero and their company goes bankrupt or is taken over by a stronger institution. While many of these CEOs have golden parachutes that open upon their dismissal, much of their compensation is in the form of the company's stock and when that value dwindles, they feel the pain as well. One of our other 2008 Money Winners, Alan Fishman, who walked away with more than $11 million for three weeks work at Washington Mutual, had 600K shares of WM that he saw evaporate.

James "Jamie" Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), has not had this kind of trouble over the past year, which places him squarely in the minority among his peers and makes him a money winner. Strictly speaking, Mr. Dimon raked in a salary for this year of "just" $1 million. His bonus allows for an additional $14.5 million, and the way things have been going for JPM, I'd wager a hefty portion of my savings that he gets the full amount. Plus on top of that, he has exercised options worth about $40.1 million this year, bringing the grand total compensation to $55.6 million.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon is the new king of Wall Street whose power rivals his company's namesake John Pierpont Morgan.

Over the past year, Dimon managed to steer JPMorgan away from the subprime credit crisis while managing to keep his company's stock from cratering like his competitors'. First, he absorbed Bear Stearns after it went out of business. Now, Dimon has managed to pick up Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE: WM) -- the good parts of it anyway -- for $1.9 billion. The deal is accretive in 2009.

Dimon is proving to be Wall Street's shrewdest manager. He did not get to be so successful by being a teddy bear. Indeed, reports abound about his abrasive personality. But unlike other Wall Street CEOs, Dimon knows his job is to work for the shareholders. Dimon's zeal for cost-cutting knows no bounds. He got rid of expensive technology outsourcing contracts, figuring the company could do the work cheaper itself.

DealBook reports that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon let out some bad news on JPMorgan's conference call today. Despite beating estimates, DealBook reported that JP Morgan's highest quality, so-called Prime mortgages, were, as Dimon said, "terrible, and we're sorry. We can say it eight times. It looks terrible."

Prime mortgages are not supposed to behave like subprime ones. But disappointment seems to be the big theme with the mortgage industry. Prime mortgages barely defaulted at all in the second quarter of 2007 -- JPMorgan wrote off 0.05% of them a year ago -- taking a $4 million charge. But in the same quarter of 2008, JPMorgan wrote off 0.91% -- and charged off $104 million.

And Dimon expects those Prime losses to triple -- to $300 million. If there's any good news, that $300 million is a mere 15% of the net income it earned this quarter. Still, it suggests the depth of the economic problems that lie ahead.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.