By Pam Martens: November 18, 2013
Last week was a lesson in obscene wealth breeding abject stupidity. The brands of JPMorgan Chase and Bloomberg News took a self-inflicted beating from preposterously dumb ideas from top management. In both instances, the companies reflected a haughty contempt and insular assessment of public sensibilities.
Congress has spent the better part of the year worrying about too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to prosecute mega banks on Wall Street. JPMorgan seemed to prove last week that these behemoths are even too big to think rationally.
In the midst of eight high profile criminal or civil investigations by the U.S. Justice Department involving the fleecing of the little guy’s pocket, JPMorgan decided to effectively take the pulse beat of public sentiment toward its brand. It decided to do this not in a closed-door focus group but in the most public of all places – Twitter. The company asked Twitter users to send questions to one of their rainmakers, Jimmy Lee, and promised that he would answer your questions on “leadership and life.” The hashtag chosen for the event was #AskJPM.
In what disfigured societal model from hell would it be appropriate for JPMorgan to lecture on “leadership and life”? One Tweet summed it up: “As a young sociopath, how can I succeed in finance? #AskJPM” Another 24,000 Tweets mined the timber and mental rot at JPMorgan before the company cancelled the event. (See our favorite selections below.)
The epic public relations nightmare on social media then traveled to mainstream media coverage and the business cable channels. CNBC turned the disaster into a poetry reading of the snarkiest putdowns of JPMorgan, featuring the narrator of their American Greed series, Stacy Keach.
This is just the latest example of arrogance run amok on Wall Street today; the theory being that unlimited wealth permits one to do what one damn well pleases and the lawyers and public relations teams will mop up the residue.
Earlier this year, in a public forum, Wall Street analyst, Mike Mayo, asked JPMorgan’s Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, a question about whether higher capital at rival bank UBS might create a competitive advantage against JPMorgan. Dimon responded: “You would go to UBS and not JPMorgan?”
Mayo: “I didn’t say that; that’s their argument.”
Dimon: “That’s why I’m richer than you.
Mentioning one’s wealth in an unprecedented era of wealth inequality and ubiquitous public grasp of the 1 percent versus the 99 percent would, to most rational thinkers, be gauche. Today, it’s brinkmanship in the eyes of the new titans of finance.
Next up for isolated mogul of the month is Matthew Winkler, the wealthy, long-tenured Editor in Chief at Bloomberg News. On Friday evening, the New York Post revealed that reporter, Michael Forsthye, “was escorted from Bloomberg’s Hong Kong office” on November 14, “after he was fingered as the person who leaked embarrassing claims about how the news and data giant spiked a story that could have angered leaders in China.” According to multiple media reports, the news stories that were killed pertained to corrupt ties between a Chinese business mogul and relatives of senior members of the Communist party. Another cancelled news story reportedly involved the hiring of Communist party family members by foreign banks – an area in which JPMorgan is currently under investigation.
The New York Post revelations came on the heels of a front page article in the New York Times on November 9 which reported the China articles were killed by Winkler after reporters had worked on them for the better part of a year. The Times said: “Most important for the larger Bloomberg company’s bottom line, financial news terminal subscriptions, which cost more than $20,000 per year and are the main revenue generator for Bloomberg, slowed for a spell in China, after officials issued orders to some Chinese companies to avoid buying subscriptions.” That action followed articles Bloomberg published in 2012 which embarrassed Chinese officials.
A comedic public shaming video of the Bloomberg affair, similar to the Twitter-lashing of JPMorgan, was released by Next Media Animation, depicting a Bloomberg reporter chained to his desk and then lashed with a whip, ostensibly for leaking what goes on inside the news gathering empire of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The video notes that Mayor Bloomberg will shortly be leaving office and has announced plans to visit China to build greater business ties. While serving in public office for the past 12 years, the Mayor’s wealth has grown from $3 billion to an astounding $31 billion, according to Forbes.
