Pam Martens and Russ Martens, 23 July 2021
The unthinkable is happening with alarming regularity at the Frankenbank JPMorgan Chase. Over the last seven years, with Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon at the helm, JPMorgan Chase has managed to do what no other federally-insured American bank has managed to do in the history of banking in the United States. The bank has admitted to five separate felony countsbrought by the U.S. Department of Justice, while regulators took no action to remove the Board of Directors or Jamie Dimon.
Now, once again, the outrageous hubris of this Board is on display. Just last fall the bank forked over $920 million of shareholders moneyto settle its fourth and fifth felony counts brought by the Department of Justice, this time for rigging the precious metals and U.S. Treasury market. Now, in the dog days of summer, rarely a time for bonuses on Wall Street, the Jrgan Chase board announced on July 20 that it is giving Dimon 1.5 million stock options which, according to a specialist cited at Bloomberg News, have a total value of $50 million on paper.
CEOs from the six largest banks on Wall Street testified under oath yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee. But only one CEO, Jamie Dimon, had an ear-piercing electronic sound emanate from his microphone, which blocked out the sound of his voice, when he was asked key questions by two separate members of Congress.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is dragging its feet in deciding whether it should approve the listing of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposed by VanEck Associates Group. While it is good to be cautious, speed and political decisiveness are equally important. Otherwise we risk the rise of a digital shadow finance industry.
Jamie Dimon is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. He was named President and Chief Operating Officer upon the company’s merger with Bank One Corporation in 2004. Dimon began his career at American Express Company. Next, he served as Chief Financial Officer and then President at Commercial Credit. Dimon served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Travelers from 1990 through 1998 while concurrently serving as Chief Operating Officer of its Smith Barney Inc. subsidiary before becoming co-Chairman and Co-CEO of the combined brokerage following the 1997 merger of Smith Barney and Salomon Brothers. In 1998, Dimon was named President of Citigroup Inc., the global financial services company formed by the combination of Travelers Group and Citicorp. He graduated at Harvard Business School. Dimon is also the Chairman of the Business Roundtable and serves on the executive committee of the Business Council and the Partnership for New York City, and is a member of the Financial Services Forum, Financial Services Roundtable and Council on Foreign Relations.