Posts Tagged ‘class warfare’
CEO of JPMorgan/Chase — Wall Street a disgrace
The chief executive of JPMorgan says he can understand some of the grievances of the Occupy movement, describing some of Wall Street’s actions as “a total disgrace.”
Speaking with CNN’s Richard Quest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was asked if he was worried about growing antagonism towards the rich.
“It’s becoming an entrenched view, but here’s the parts I agree with,” he said. “People are angry because a lot of people in Wall Street made a lot of money as companies went down the tubes, and I agree with them. That’s a total disgrace.”
He stressed his firm had acted responsibly. “We never had special severance packages and stuff like that… So a lot of new rules being promulgated, we were always doing them.”
Dimon said he was concerned about the gap between rich and poor. “I do think we’re all better off if society gets increasingly equitable. The question we’ve got to deal with is, how do you do that?”
He advocated progressive taxation, and a focus on “giving people better opportunities.”
“In the United States, half the kids in inner city schools don’t graduate — that’s the biggest sin we make in our country right there.”
Jamie Dimon must drive most of his competitors round the bend. He’s never reticent to tell the truth as he sees it.
That doesn’t mean he’s right more often than his peers; but, he certainly doesn’t consider diplomacy a priority over banking analysis.
Click through to the article and watch the video. His remarks on an equitable society are about halfway through. It’s all interesting.
Wisconsin protest draws 100,000 protesting anti-union governor
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
Up to 100,000 people protested at the Wisconsin state Capitol on Saturday against a new law curbing the union rights of public workers that is seen as one of the biggest challenges in decades facing U.S. organized labor.
Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain estimated the crowd at 85,000 to 100,000 people, which would top the size of protests in Madison during the Vietnam War…
Republicans say the measures are needed to gain control of deficit-ridden budgets. Democrats and their union backers say Republicans are ramming through union-busting proposals.
Protesters on Saturday cheered the Democratic state senators who returned to Wisconsin after fleeing to Illinois for three weeks to try to stall the Legislature’s consideration of the measure.
“It’s so good to be home in Wisconsin,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller told demonstrators, who chanted, “Welcome Home” and “We’re With You.”
“Our fight to protect union rights has become a fight to protect all our rights — a fight to protect democracy,” said Miller. “You have inspired the nation with your passionate and peaceful protests…”
Restrictions on public sector unions have been introduced in a number of other U.S. states with Republican governors, including Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and Florida. Some Democrats see it as the opening salvo of the 2012 presidential election because unions are the biggest single contributors to the Democratic Party.
Who knows. This may herald a return to the days when unions provided a much-needed backbone to the Democratic Party.
Yes, you know how much of a cynic I am. Optimist; but, cynic. Lighting a fire under the barely-Left half of America’s political establishment may ignite a matching fire in the eye of politicians who like to say they are allied to the mass of American voters.
