Rep Katie Porter of California, another Freshman congresswoman to watch, poses a math puzzle to JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon concerning a hypothetical single mother with a 6 year old working for Dimon's own bank for a very unhypothetical wage (as advertised on Monster.com), in a hearing of financial executives a decade after the financial crisis of the late aughts:
Yet another Freshman representative, Cindy Axne of Iowa asked Dimon in the same hearing to explain how his bank spent the $3.7 billion tax break the company got in the 2017 Tax cuts, forcing the fellow to admit that of the total, only $100 million, or 2.7% of the cut was reinvested-- the vaunted intent of the cut per the administration and the Republicans who passed it. The remaining $3.6 billion was used to buy back shares, essentially artificially raising the price of JPMorgan stock, a manipulation that is designed to maximize the compensation of the board and of the company's executives through market shenanigans alone-- not productivity or performance. As Congresswoman Axne points out, Dimon's compensation is already as much as 350 times the median pay of the company's employees (and more than 880 times that of the Monster.com job used by Rep Porter in her questioning), a fact which undermines the case of the executives for further easing of financial regulations-- a move which would encourage further speculations on spurious causes potentially precipitating if not merely accelerating an even more intense repeat of the previous disaster.
Can you imagine the smell of vetiver and flop sweat permeating that room? It's a lovely start.
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