Jamie Dimon’s behavior has got to be a classic melding of psychosis and smugness. And a healthy dose of “I know the system is rigged and now matter how much I fuck up, I’m not getting the axe.” And, sadly, he’s got a lot of evidence to support his smug act.
What’s Jamie’s mood like? The Wall Street Journal says, oh, just sailing along and smiling (behind the paywall):
Jamie Dimon smiled and made small talk as he welcomed guests to a cocktail reception at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s Manhattan headquarters last week, just hours after being notified a federal lawsuit against the bank could be filed imminently.
…..
Earlier in the day, the Justice Department had notified Mr. Dimon it was prepared to file a suit against the bank for the way it packaged and sold mortgage bonds leading up to the financial crisis. But at the reception, no one asked questions about the numerous regulatory probes buffeting the nation’s largest bank by assets—and Mr. Dimon didn’t bring such matters up.
For the past two months, the CEO has kept a busy calendar of appearances designed to show the outside world the bank is conducting business as usual. Mr. Dimon has taken every opportunity to talk up the bank’s role as a lender, supporter of local communities and champion of charitable causes.
That despite the fact that the bank is looking to settle claims filed against it by the government for $11 billion…ELEVEN BILLION DOLLARS.
And despite the fact that there are a whole raft of other claims against the bank.
Now, a normal person would be stressed out, hunkered down. Not Jamie.
Know why? Because no matter how badly he fucked up, no matter how much money the bank is going to have to shell out for misdeeds dating back to the financial crisis, Jamie will never pay a single dime out of his own pocket and will not spend a single minute in jail. That isn’t thw ay the system works.
Corporate crooks and corporate incompetents just keep rolling along, pocketing huge amounts of money. See, the “free market” only punishes those who don’t run the show.
