Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Last week was a lesson in obscene wealth breeding abject stupidity. The brands of JPMorgan Chase and Bloomberg News took a self-inflicted beating from preposterously dumb ideas from top management. In both instances, the companies reflected a haughty contempt and insular assessment of public sensibilities.
Congress has spent the better part of the year worrying about too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to prosecute mega banks on Wall Street. JPMorgan seemed to prove last week that these behemoths are even too big to think rationally.
In the midst of eight high profile criminal or civil investigations by the U.S. Justice Department involving the fleecing of the little guy’s pocket, JPMorgan decided to effectively take the pulse beat of public sentiment toward its brand. It decided to do this not in a closed-door focus group but in the most public of all places – Twitter. The company asked Twitter users to send questions to one of their rainmakers, Jimmy Lee, and promised that he would answer your questions on “leadership and life.” The hashtag chosen for the event was #AskJPM.
In what disfigured societal model from hell would it be appropriate for JPMorgan to lecture on “leadership and life”? One Tweet summed it up: “As a young sociopath, how can I succeed in finance? #AskJPM” Another 24,000 Tweets mined the timber and mental rot at JPMorgan before the company cancelled the event. (See our favorite selections below.)
The epic public relations nightmare on social media then traveled to mainstream media coverage and the business cable channels. CNBC turned the disaster into a poetry reading of the snarkiest putdowns of JPMorgan, featuring the narrator of their American Greed series, Stacy Keach.
This is just the latest example of arrogance run amok on Wall Street today; the theory being that unlimited wealth permits one to do what one damn well pleases and the lawyers and public relations teams will mop up the residue.
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