Sat February 15, 2014 10:24 pm
Sat February 15, 2014 10:48 pm
Sat February 15, 2014 11:10 pm
Their first move was to make sure people outside the penthouse boardroom took on all the pain, laying off 7,500 employees and freezing salaries for the non-CEO class of line employees.
Next, Chase's board members sat down, put their misshapen heads together, considered the impact of this disastrous year of settlements, and decided to respond by more than doubling the take-home pay of the executive in charge, giving Dimon about $20 million in salary and equity.
In the end, the fines left the decision-making class of the company not just uninjured but triumphant. Dimon's raise was symbolic of a company-wide boost in compensation following the mass layoffs, as average per-employee expenses rose four percent overall, to $122,653, despite the $20 billion burden imposed upon the firm by the state.
There were a variety of reasons for the board's decisions, but one of the big ones, according to various reports, was that bank honchos wanted to send a message to the government that it believed the company had been unfairly treated. This was a notion Dimon himself snootily trumpeted just before his raise was announced.
But as we all know by now, when business leaders can get paid tens or hundreds of millions upfront for deals that take years to pan out (or not), when personal compensation isn't tied to the long-term performance of the company, executives will tend to leverage their firms to the hilt in search of short-term profits, and they won't think twice about zooming past safety thresholds. This is irrational behavior from a corporate perspective, sure, but totally rational from a personal-greed perspective.
Sat February 15, 2014 11:30 pm
Mon February 17, 2014 12:19 am
--- wrote:i wish i had the patience to post in this thread
Tue February 18, 2014 9:33 pm
Matthew Yglesias wrote:The final $13 billion tally that JPMorgan will pay out in various ways to settle litigation launched by the federal government and various state attorneys general is eye-popping. But there's a little bit less here than meets the eye at first glance, and a good deal less than the lead prosecutors are making there out to be in their triumphant press releases.
For starters, the money. Getting to $13 billion involves adding $9 billion in new payments to a $4 billion settlement JPMorgan already reached with the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Of the remaining $9 billion, just $2 billion takes the form of an actual fine. The $7 billion in other compensatory payments Morgan will have to make is tax-deductible, which assuming the company has smart accountants and lawyers working for it, will reduce the real pain by somewhere in the $2 billion–$3 billion range. And then backing this back out, JPMorgan can count writedowns of loans that are owned by third-party investors as constituting $2 billion worth of consumer relief even though no consumers would be relieved, and though these writedowns are genuinely painful, they'd likely happen anyway.
Last year the Fed and the OCC claimed they had settled with 13 servicers accused of illegal foreclosure practices, and claimed an $8.5 billion settlement. Of that $8.5 billion, $5.2 billion was in the form of credits for what the agency described as “loan modifications and forgiveness of deficiency judgments.” But they left out a key detail. Servicers could rack up credits by forgiving a fraction of large unpaid loans. If they wrote down, say, $15,000 of a $500,000 balance, they would get credit for the full $500,000 loan. That undisclosed method could end up cutting overall value by almost 60%.
Tue February 18, 2014 9:47 pm
Tue February 18, 2014 10:43 pm
Wed February 19, 2014 12:19 am
Wed February 19, 2014 12:56 am
broken iris wrote:We are so blinded by our allegiance to Team Blue or Team Red that we don't say anything when our side fucks us over for fear of lending credence to the other side.
Wed February 19, 2014 1:23 am
Wed February 19, 2014 1:51 am
Wed February 19, 2014 4:36 am
Wed February 19, 2014 11:48 am
Kaius wrote:I don't have time to watch that video, but even if you order from an Applebee's touchscreen menu a server still has to bring you your meal and keep the drinks coming. How does that system eliminate the need for a waiter/waitress?
Wed February 19, 2014 4:00 pm
Wed February 19, 2014 9:08 pm
Thu February 20, 2014 5:00 am
I don't get why they split off web developers into their own category. Even then, we still finished 9th!surfndestroy wrote:US News Top 5 Jobs for 2014
Top 5 best jobs, according to the report:
No. 1: Software developer
No. 2: Computer systems analyst
No. 3: Dentist
No. 4: Nurse practitioner
No. 5: Pharmacist
Doctor, by the way, is No. 8.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/02/19/_100_best_jobs_in_2014_software_programmer_tops_list.html
Safe for another year.
Thu February 20, 2014 11:06 am
Green Habit wrote:I don't get why they split off web developers into their own category. Even then, we still finished 9th!surfndestroy wrote:US News Top 5 Jobs for 2014
Top 5 best jobs, according to the report:
No. 1: Software developer
No. 2: Computer systems analyst
No. 3: Dentist
No. 4: Nurse practitioner
No. 5: Pharmacist
Doctor, by the way, is No. 8.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/02/19/_100_best_jobs_in_2014_software_programmer_tops_list.html
Safe for another year.
Thu February 20, 2014 3:36 pm
broken iris wrote:Green Habit wrote:I don't get why they split off web developers into their own category. Even then, we still finished 9th!surfndestroy wrote:US News Top 5 Jobs for 2014
Top 5 best jobs, according to the report:
No. 1: Software developer
No. 2: Computer systems analyst
No. 3: Dentist
No. 4: Nurse practitioner
No. 5: Pharmacist
Doctor, by the way, is No. 8.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/02/19/_100_best_jobs_in_2014_software_programmer_tops_list.html
Safe for another year.
Picture in that article says a lot.
Thu February 20, 2014 5:34 pm