Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) came into office on the promise to create 250,000 jobs in his first term. He then, of course, eschewed that goal in order to focus on busting Wisconsin’s public sector unions.

Wisconsin, in fact, saw the largest decrease in employment last year, making it one of only four states to lose jobs. But Walker on Saturday doubled down on his promise to create 250,000 jobs:

Gov. Scott Walker recommitted Saturday to his pledge to create 250,000 private-sector jobs by 2015, a promise all the more difficult to achieve since he first made it because of anemic job growth during his tenure. [...]

“It’s a commitment I made in 2010 and it’s a commitment I make today,” Walker said.

As Menzie Chinn noted as Econbrowser, Walker has a long way to go to make that happen. The green line represents the pace of job creation Walker needs to attain, while the blue line is what’s actually happening:

Of course, Walker could always use the trick pulled by Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) and simply pretend that his promise on jobs never happened (video evidence to the contrary).

Massachusetts Democratic senate candidate Elizabeth Warren reacted to the news of JP Morgan’s $2 billion trading debacle by calling for the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, to step down from his position as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s board. Today, Warren also said that the episode makes the case for a return to “boring banking” — separating investment banking from traditional commercial banking — which was the status quo before the deregulatory zeal of the late 1990s:

Q: You think had it [the Volcker rule] been in place, we wouldn’t be talking about this?

WARREN: Well, I’m going to put it this way. The Volcker Rule would help. We don’t know exactly the nature of these trades. But if the question is is the Volcker rule enough, or do we need more, look, I’m somebody who believes we really should have boring banking. That banking should be — the part that’s about savings accounts and checking accounts and our money system — should be separated from the kind of risk-taking that Wall Street traders want to take. That was originally what the Glass-Steagall Act was about, it was repealed in 1999. There was an effort to get it into Dodd-Frank in the 2010 bill. That effort failed. I think we really do need that kind of separation. We need to go back to boring banking. The people who want to take risks need to take risks with their own money and do it somewhere else.

Watch it:

This echoes the call made by economist Paul Krugman, who noted that the era of boring banking “was also an era of spectacular economic progress for most Americans.”

The news that JPMorgan Chase lost at least $2 billion on a single trade that went sour is not evidence that the industry needs to be more stringently regulated and is instead proof that Wall Street needs even less regulation, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday.

Republicans, who fought efforts to pass new regulations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and have helped weaken the regulations that ultimately passed, have largely remained silent amid widespread calls for stronger regulations since JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon announced the massive loss Thursday. Priebus, however, made it clear during an interview with NBC’s David Gregory yesterday that the GOP still opposes the sort of regulation that could have prevented the losses and protected taxpayers and the economy:

GREGORY: You think we need less financial regulation, rather than more?

PRIEBUS: I think we need less. I mean, the fact of the matter is, Dodd-Frank didn’t work. [...]

GREGORY: So, you’re satisfied with the way Wall Street operates, with the kinds of bets that were taken by JPMorgan Chase that led to this kind of loss. You don’t think that Washington regulators can remedy that?

PRIEBUS: Certainly Dodd-Frank didn’t remedy it.

Watch it:

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) made a similar call on Fox News Sunday, saying, “We need to make sure we get all facts before jumping to conclusions about the need for greater financial regulation.”

It’s hard to make sense of these claims. JPMorgan’s loss is hardly proof of Dodd-Frank’s failure — the Volcker Rule, which could have prevented the trade, hasn’t yet been finalized and implemented. And if Dodd-Frank “didn’t remedy” the problem that led to JPMorgan’s losses, it’s because of the efforts of Republicans and Wall Street lobbyists, who have watered down the rule and fought to insert a loophole allowing the sort of trade that cost JPMorgan billions of dollars. At a time when it’s painfully clear that Wall Street can’t manage its own risk or prevent its own failure — even with the lesson of 2008 fresh in its mind — Priebus still thinks the industry is too heavily regulated.

“I’m not a financial expert,” Priebus later told Gregory. At least he got something right.

The fallout from JP Morgan’s $2 billion trading loss is continuing today with the news that three of the bank’s executives will exit the firm. CEO Jamie Dimon is in full disaster management mode, appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press yesterday to push back on claims that JP Morgan’s mess shows that there is still too much risk in the banking system.

Just last month, JP Morgan economist Blythe Masters insisted that the bank was not engaged in trading for its own benefit. Dimon meanwhile, was deriding the proponents of regulations to rein in risky trading as “infantile,” as the New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson reported:

The loss, and the embarrassment it held for Jamie Dimon, the bank’s imperious chief executive, came just one month after a private dinner party in Dallas at which he assailed two respected public figures who have pushed for policies that would make banks like JPMorgan smaller and less risky.

One was Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, whose remedy for risky trading by too-big-to-fail banks is known as the Volcker Rule. The other was Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, who has also argued that large institutions should be slimmed down or limited in their risky trading practices. [...]

During the party, Mr. Dimon took questions from the crowd, according to an attendee who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the bank. One guest asked about the problem of too-big-to-fail banks and the arguments made by Mr. Volcker and Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Dimon responded that he had just two words to describe them: “infantile” and “nonfactual.”

Not only has JP Morgan belittled those trying to ensure that the nation’s biggest banks can’t threaten the economy with their risky trading, but it has actively lobbied to water down new rules governing these trades. And Dimon is still claiming that the Volcker Rule, meant to prevent banks from trading for their own account with taxpayer-backed dollars, is unnecessary. But as Businessweek’s economic editor, Peter Coy, wrote:

The need for a risk-reducing rule something like the Volcker Rule is obvious. Banks have a special obligation to avoid risk because their failure can drag down the entire economy. JPMorgan is able to borrow cheaply because lenders understand that the federal government will not let it default. In fact, it has been officially declared “too big to fail.” In return for the trampoline of taxpayer dollars—once implicit, now explicit—JPMorgan and other too-big-to-fail banks have no choice but to accept some constraints on their freedom of action.

But it sure doesn’t seem like Dimon will be swayed by that argument anytime soon.