The art of being a hypocrite

The other night, I was watching “America at the Crossroads” on PBS News. Judy Woodruff, a former anchor on that channel, was interviewing Jamie Dimon, arguably one of the most powerful bankers in the world and CEO of JPMorgan Chase since 2006. 

I don’t like Chase, having been a good client for decades with that institution and, for no good reasons, refused to keep my safe deposit box there. I subsequently changed banks for the better. Mr. Dimon was asked questions about the US economy and its political climate by Woodruff and he made all the hypocritical answers I was expecting from him. 

His pedigree is impressive though. He was on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during the late 2010s, and since has been a board member of the Business Roundtable, the Bank Policy Institute, and Harvard Business School. Dimon was also included in Time magazine's 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011 lists of the world's 100 most influential people. 

As of February 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at over $2 billion and last year he earned $36 million. That’s right $3 million a month, almost a hundredfold his bank tellers’ salary that range from $33,910 to $41,018. This said, Dimon was the first to acknowledge during the interview that he was concerned about the societal inequalities in America (a reassuring thought!) 

During the interview, he lists a lot of things the US government should do to address this deepening inequality, barely mentioning the need to tax a tad more fellows in his socioeconomic category, mentioning the Buffett Rule that would require millionaires and billionaires to pay the same tax rate as middle-class families and working people. 

That rule, inspired by the billionaire Warren Buffett, was proposed by Obama in 2011 and would have applied a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on individuals making more than one million dollars a year, only directly affecting 0.3 percent of taxpayers. 

Besides that, Dimon said that Democrats should stop demonizing Trump who had “some good ideas” while it was president, disregarding the man’s criminal record and his devastating influence on American society. In conclusion, a Teflon interview with a smooth Teflon guy who doesn’t want to upset his livelihood and really doesn’t seem to care about who is behind our Country’s rudder...