Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves to make sure we are not sleepwalking in a Dickensian dream. Earlier this week we heard Senator Elizabeth Warren tell a Senate Banking session how JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, got a $8.5 million raise after craftily negotiating away all of the bank’s crimes with the payment of billions in shareholders’ money. (Two of those crimes, by the way, were felony counts for aiding and abetting Bernie Madoff in his Ponzi scheme – also craftily settled under a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, which effectively puts the bank on probation for two years.)
Last night, the Wall Street Journal informed the public that, apparently, none of this criminal activity at JPMorgan has dulled President Obama’s fondness for its CEO Jamie Dimon, who has recently been undergoing treatments for throat cancer. The Journal reported: ‘During one of his earliest treatments, Mr. Dimon received a call on his cellphone from President Barack Obama, who wished him a healthy recovery, the bank confirmed.’
A President with a kind heart toward those experiencing health issues is, of course, a virtue. But it is more than likely that the President hasn’t similarly dialed up the victims of JPMorgan’s various and sundry wealth transfer assaults when they fall ill.
One day before the news of the President’s phone call to Dimon emerged, we learned from the U. S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that some senior citizens are having their Social Security payments garnished over unpaid student loan debt, forcing them below the poverty threshold.
This post was published at Wall Street On Parade By Pam Martens and Russ Marte.
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