Courtesy of Pam Martens.
One of the Scenes from the Christmas Card of Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase
There are lots of reasons to worry about America’s future. But one worry that we seldom hear discussed in any comprehensive way is the growing brand impairment resulting from the loss of Americans’ belief in their country’s sense of decency and the loss of credibility abroad from the too-big-to-discipline CEO – who, for better or worse, is acutely aligned with the corporate brand.
Whether we like it or not, great corporate brands create jobs in America and tarnished brands result in job losses.
There seems to be an intellectual disconnect in the thinking of the corporate Board of Directors who continue to lavish obscene pay on the discredited CEO and the reality that the corporate brand – the most valuable asset the corporation owns – is being severely diminished in the eyes of the consumer whose trust or distrust in that brand is central to the survival of the corporation.
When we think of Goldman Sachs today, what comes to mind? It might be Lloyd Blankfein’s quip that he’s “doing God’s work.” Or the backdoor payments from taxpayers’ bailout funds to AIG that landed at the front door of Goldman Sachs to bail out their bets on credit default swaps. Or maybe the Abacus deal where Goldman concocted an investment product designed to fail and sold it to their own customers.
Yesterday, at the JPMorgan shareholders’ meeting, which has been held in Tampa, Florida for the past three years, more than 1,000 miles from the JPMorgan headquarters in New York (ostensibly to avoid mass protests), CEO Jamie Dimon’s pay package was rubber stamped by shareholders at $20 million for 2013. Over the past 18 months, the bank has been charged with ever alarming amounts of crimes, including the unprecedented two-felony count charge for aiding and abetting the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme which devastated financial lives across America. The bank was given a deferred prosecution agreement and put on probation for two years along with $2 billion in fines.
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