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jamie dimon
Spineless, Greedy CEOs Are Lining Up to Lick Trump’s Backside
At a time in American history when the most influential leaders of the U.S. need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, democracy, and decency, they are leading the charge in the opposite direction.
Dec 15, 2024
Anyone recall the time in the late summer of 2017 when prominent CEOs resigned from U.S. President Donald Trump’s business councils in protest at his defense of white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, after Trump called them “very fine people”?
At the time, I thought America’s CEOs might become a bulwark against Trump’s extremism. But I was wrong. Within months, the CEOs were seeking to get back into Trump’s good graces.
After the insurrection unleashed by Trump against the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, many CEOs announced they wouldn’t be financing the campaigns of election deniers. CEOs of prominent social media banned Trump from appearing.
Tump is getting nothing but fawning encouragement to do anything he wants to do. That makes him even more dangerous.
I hoped their actions would limit Trump’s fanaticism and Trump’s growing MAGA movement. I was wrong again. Within two years, the CEOs were financing the campaigns of election deniers. Within three years, prominent social media were allowing Trump to return to their platforms and retell his lies.
I confess to having had a moment’s thought during the last eight months that Trump’s conviction on 34 criminal counts in Manhattan, his civil conviction for defamation in connection with what a judge termed “rape,” and his disgraceful nativism—describing poorer nations as “shit holes,” using terms redolent of Nazism to describe foreigners as “poisoning the blood” of Americans, and baselessly accusing Haitian immigrants of “eating our pets”—might force CEOs to rethink their willingness to give Trump a pass.
No such luck.
Amazon’s founder and chief, Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with Trump in the first Trump administration. Angry with Bezos over unfavorable reporting in the Post, Trump questioned whether Amazon got a sweetheart deal with the U.S. Postal Service. Amazon, in turn, accused Trump of improperly pressuring the Pentagon to deny the company a major cloud computing contract.
Bezos apparently learned his lesson. After Trump was shot at a campaign event, Bezos called him, and on social media praised Trump’s “grace and courage under literal fire.”
Bezos didn’t allow the Post’s editorial board to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Now, Bezos says he’s “very optimistic” about the incoming Trump administration, and that Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. And my point of view is, if I can help him do that, I’m going to help him, because we do have too much regulation in this country.”
Amazon is donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, and said it will livestream the inauguration next month.
Not to be outdone in the groveling department, Meta’s (Facebook’s) CEO Mark Zuckerberg got a dinner invitation at Mar-a-Lago.
Meta is also putting $1 million into Trump’s inaugural fund.
“It’s an important time for the future of American innovation,” Meta said in a statement. “Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner [Zuckerberg sought it] and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration.”
Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, told Fox News that Zuckerberg “has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of, and a participant in, this change we’re seeing all around America and the world, with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading.”
In his first administration, Trump accused Facebook of filtering out views favorable to him. He even called for Zuckerberg to be jailed in retaliation for “plotting against” him during the 2020 election.
Now, like Bezos, Zuckerberg has turned to fawning. During the campaign, he had several private phone calls with Trump. After the assassination attempt, Zuckerberg told Trump he was “praying” for him, and told an interviewer Trump looked like a “badass” after pumping his fist to the crowd.
The suck-up list goes on and on. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman also plans to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” Altman says.
Elon Musk and half of Silicon Valley is kissing Trump’s derrier.
Last January, speaking from the World Economic Forum’s confab in Davos, Jamie Dimon—chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest and most profitable bank in the United States, and one of the most influential CEOs in the world—heaped praise on Trump’s policies while president the first time.
“Take a step back, be honest,” Dimon said. Trump “was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked.”
Kind of right about NATO? Trump wanted the U.S. to withdraw from the pact—and may get his way after January 20. This would open Europe further to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Kind of right on immigration? Even the conservative Cato Institute found that Trump reduced legal immigration but not illegal immigration. Trump refused to grant legal status to children of immigrants born in the United States or who grew up here, and tried to ban Muslims from the U.S.
Grew the economy quite well? In fact, under Trump the economy lost 2.9 million jobs. Even before the pandemic, job growth was slower than it’s been under Biden. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%. The international trade deficit that Trump promised to reduce increased. The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by 3 million.
Tax reform worked? Trump’s tax cut conferred most of its benefits on big corporations and the rich, while exploding the federal debt from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.
Why did Dimon—the most influential CEO in America—spout these lies in favor of Trump? Because he thought Trump had a good chance of becoming president, and Dimon wanted to be in his good graces.
Also, Dimon’s support for Nikki Haley had irked Trump. In a post on Truth Social in late November, Trump said “Highly overrated Globalist Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMORGAN, is quietly pushing another non-MAGA person, Nikki Haley, for president,” and “I’ve never been a big Jamie Dimon fan, but had to live with this guy when he came begging to the White House. I guess I don’t have to live with him anymore, and that’s a really good thing.”
Dimon felt it necessary to lick Trump’s backside. When Dimon did this, it was a signal to other CEOs to abase themselves, too.
The CEOs are all sucking up to Trump.
At a time in American history when the most influential leaders of the U.S. need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, democracy, and decency, they are leading the charge in the opposite direction—fawning over the most dangerous authoritarian America has ever had in the Oval Office.
Tump is getting nothing but fawning encouragement to do anything he wants to do. That makes him even more dangerous.
Other tech executives, like Elon Musk, who has stumped for the conservative movement and gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the Trump campaign, have forged a closer relationship with Mr. Trump. (Mr. Musk and Mr. Zuckerberg have developed such a tense relationship that the two spent 2023 challenging one another to a physical fight.) But executives at Meta hope that Mr. Zuckerberg can launch a new relationship with Mr. Trump by taking a softer touch with the incoming administration.
Gifts to inaugural committees, which do not have contribution limits, are popular among businesses and individuals eager to curry favor with an incoming administration. Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee is offering top-tier benefits to donors who contribute $1 million.
Amazon gave $57,746 to Mr. Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks political donations. The company said the Biden campaign did not accept donations from tech companies in 2020.
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Social Security Threatened by Nikki Haley and Her GOP Friends
Fewer than 10% of anybody polled in the last four decades agreed with Nikki Haley that we spend too much on Social Security.
Feb 06, 2024
Nikki Haley wants to be president, which remains hypothetically possible… I guess. Donald Trump might, for example, be struck by a falling piano while walking down the sidewalk. Or his legal problems could intervene. But the wheels of justice don’t seem to be turning quickly enough to save Haley from a crushing primary defeat. She trails the former president by a
two-to-one margin in her home state and more than four to one among Republicans nationwide.
Among her many flaws, Haley wants to cut Social Security. Just last August, she said that a retirement age of 65 is “way too low” and should be raised “according to life expectancy.” That’s misdirection; the current retirement age for Social Security is 67, not 65, and United States life expectancy is falling, not rising.
Raising Social Security’s statutory retirement age by even a year is mathematically indistinguishable from a 6% to 7% across-the-board benefit cut. Because of the way Social Security’s benefits are calculated, that’s true regardless of when one claims benefits: at 62, 67, 70, or any other time. Raising the retirement age to 70 would worsen inequality and substantially cut benefits, especially for lower-income workers, as David Rosnick and Dean Baker found in 2010.
There’s a clean way to increase Social Security spending without “bankrupting” anything or overhauling our economic theories: by raising taxes on Dimon and the people who filled that November conference room. But you won’t hear Nikki Haley mention that.
Governor Haley, don’t lose this number: 64.3. That’s the average retirement age for countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In 2010, Social Security’s full retirement age was 66 years. If it had been linked to life expectancy then, it would have been reduced—to roughly the OECD average.
But fearmongering and facts don’t mix, and Haley’s gone into full-on fear mode over Social Security. She draws heavily on all the phony talking points and pie charts cooked up by billionaire-funded “think tanks” and astroturf groups.
Despite decades of propagandizing, voters aren’t buying it. A review of long-term polling on the subject found that most Democrats, Republicans, and Independents have consistently viewed Social Security “very favorably” for nearly 40 years. This positive opinion was essentially the same for younger and older people, and for both white and Hispanic voters. (Black voters were even more favorable.)
But then, Haley wasn’t speaking to voters—not yet. She was making her pitch to mega-donors like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who last November told a room filled with CEOs and Wall Street executives to get out their checkbooks for her. Other conference attendees were “just folks” types like Elon Musk, billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman, and Disney head Bob Iger.
“Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump,” Dimon told the elite gathering—meaning, presumably, better for business. (That remark is likely to reappear in Trump’s campaign materials, as the huckster ex-president seeks to burnish his faux-populist credentials.)
Dimon’s remark was well-timed. As he praised the former governor, a group of CEOs was announcing a new pro-Haley Super PAC.
Who is Jamie Dimon? Members of the House Financial Services Committee cited his bank’s practice of “pinklining” (discriminatory lending toward women) and its role (at least, as of 2019) as “the number one funder of fossil fuels in the world.” Dimon’s bank looked the other way as Bernie Madoff bilked widows, orphans, and charities and earned some well-deserved notoriety for its extensive business ties to Jeffrey Epstein (a JPM exec visited Epstein in prison).
For at least two decades, JPMorgan Chase systematically engaged in enough criminal activity to qualify it as the largest organized-crime syndicate in North America. It’s far worse than Enron, with crimes and violations that include foreclosure fraud, investor fraud, cheating customers, and market manipulation.
Before Dimon made his pitch for her, an “unnamed banking source” told Axios that Dimon and Haley had been having regular talks about the economy.
Like the saying goes: Game recognize game.
Haley’s billionaire-backed agenda, including her call for Social Security cuts, added to her New Hampshire loss. Political scientist Thomas Ferguson and his team found that Trump performed even better in parts of the state that had lower incomes and negative growth, concluding:
The... results testify how little many of the also ran’s favorite economic themes—the perils of the deficit, cutting Social Security, or crypto—moved Trump’s core constituency. Large numbers of Trump voters count on Social Security to get by...
Even if the improbable happens and Trump implodes, Haley would still have to face voters eventually. Here’s another number she shouldn’t lose: 10%. The historical polling data found that, for nearly four decades, “at no time did more than 10% (of those polled) state that too much was spent” on Social Security.
Fewer than 10% of Republicans thought it. Fewer than 10% of self-described conservatives thought it. Fewer than 10% of anybody, in fact, agreed with Nikki Haley that we spend too much on Social Security. Except for a brief period in the 1990s, an outright majority of Americans has said we spend too little.
They’re right. There’s a clean way to increase that spending without “bankrupting” anything or overhauling our economic theories: by raising taxes on Dimon and the people who filled that November conference room. But you won’t hear Nikki Haley mention that.
Here’s a number the rest of us shouldn’t lose: $8 million. That’s what Haley reportedly made cashing in on her government career—as a director for Boeing (of plane crash and exploding door fame); giving speeches to banks like Barclays and groups like the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which “provided more money in a day than Haley had previously earned in a year”; and other sources.
She’ll be fine in retirement. It’s the rest of us who should worry—about Nikki Haley and her friends.
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Jamie Dimon Groveling Before Trump Exemplifies How Fascism Takes Root
At a time in American history when the most influential leaders of America need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, for democracy, for decency, and against Donald Trump, Dimon is leading the charge in the opposite direction.
Jan 20, 2024
On Wednesday, speaking from the World Economic Forum’s confab in Davos, Switzerland, Jamie Dimon — chair and CEO of the largest and most profitable bank in the United States and one of the most influential CEOs in the world — heaped praise on Donald Trump’s policies while president.
“Take a step back, be honest. He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. He wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues,” said Dimon.What?
Mr. Dimon, take a step back, be honest.
Kind of right about NATO? Trump wanted the U.S. to withdraw from NATO — and may get his way if he becomes president again. This would open Europe further to Putin’s aggression.
Kind of right on immigration? Even the conservative CATO Institute found that Trump reduced legal immigration but not illegal immigration. Trump refused to grant legal status to children of immigrants born in the United States or who grew up in the U.S. He banned Muslims from America, and when the Muslim ban was found to be unconstitutional, banned people from Muslim countries. He fueled the flames of nativism by describing poorer nations as “shit holes” and has used Nazi terms to describe foreigners as “poisoning the blood” of Americans.
Grew the economy quite well? In fact, under Trump the economy lost 2.9 million jobs. Even before the pandemic, job growth was slower than it has been under Biden. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%. The international trade deficit Trump promised to reduce went up. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 40.5% from 2016. The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.
Tax reform worked? Trump’s tax cut conferred most of its benefits on big corporations and the rich, while enlarging the budget deficit. Giant banks and financial services companies got huge gains based on the new, lower corporate rate (21%), as well as the more preferable tax treatment of pass-through companies.
If not for the Trump cuts — along with the Bush tax cutsand their extensions—federal revenues would keep pace with federal spending indefinitely, and the ratio of the debt to the national economy would be declining. Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90% of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to COVID-19 and the Great Recession are excluded. Eventually, the tax cuts are projected to grow to more than 100% of the increase.
Right about China? As the Brookings Institution found, Trump’s China policy only made China less restrained in pursuit of its ambitions. Confrontation has intensified, areas of cooperation have vanished, and the capacity of both countries to solve problems or manage competing interests has atrophied.
Oh, and then there are the pesky matters of Trump’s seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, facing 91 criminal indictments, causing America to be more divided than at any time since the Civil War, lying every time he opens his mouth, and planning to use the Justice Department for “vengeance” against his political enemies if elected again.
Why is Jamie Dimon — the most influential CEO in America — spouting these lies in favor of Trump?
Because he thinks Trump has a good chance of becoming president, and Dimon wants to be in his good graces.
Asked which candidate would be better for his business, Dimon said, “I have to be prepared for both. I will be prepared for both. We will deal with both.”
Dimon knows that his support for Nikki Haley irked Trump.
“Highly overrated Globalist Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMORGAN, is quietly pushing another non-MAGA person, Nikki Haley, for President,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social in late November. “I’ve never been a big Jamie Dimon fan, but had to live with this guy when he came begging to the White House. I guess I don’t have to live with him anymore, and that’s a really good thing.”
So now, Dimon — like Republican lawmakers across America, like other leaders of American institutions — feels it necessary to cave into the integrity-crushing intimidation of a Trump administration, and lick Trump’s backside.
And when Dimon does this, you can bet many other CEOs and financial leaders will now follow his example.
At a time in American history when the most influential leaders of America need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, for democracy, for decency, and against Donald Trump, Dimon is leading the charge in the opposite direction.
This is how fascism takes root and spreads, friends.
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