Monday, March 18, 2013

Ina Drew testified before the Senate last week .Ms Drew was one of the highest paid people at JP Morgan Chase. During her last two years of employment in 2010 and 2011, she made over 15 million dollars per year. She was the Chief Investment Officer and supposedly watching the risk levels of the firm's proprietary investments. When asked about the "London Whale" debacle which blew a 6 billion dollar hole in the bank's profit, in the department she was in charge this was her reply,

 "things went terribly wrong" she said, adding that some of the large purchases of derivatives last March "were not bought to my attention on time"  -  WSJ March 16,2013

Here we have an executive making 15 million dollars a year, sitting in her office waiting to be told what is going on in her department. Hello! anybody home? Just what did Ina think her job was?

A special award for Corporate double speak and responsibility evasion goes to American Airlines. As the company emerges from bankruptcy, they are petitioning the judge overseeing the process for a 20 million dollar bonus for the Chairman of the company, Tom Horton. Tom, who led the company into bankruptcy, jammed the workers and stuck it to the investors is worth it because according the Andrew Backover an American Airlines spokesman,

“The relief requested will appropriately motivate a strong management team during the integration process to ensure the value potential of the merger is realized,”   -  Bloomberg News 3/16/13

Translation: Unless you reward management for bad behavior, we will not do the work we are getting paid to do in the first place. These people don't even have enough self perception to be embarrassed. Nothing has changed on Wall Street, we are still through the looking glass.

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