OK, I admit it. It seems I have a modest fixation on the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. I’m not sure why really. Probably because he’s often in the news which, in turn, makes him an obvious symbol of leadership in corporate America – and, for me, an easy target.
I’m reluctant further to feed my “modest fixation.” But obviously I’m not so reluctant as to deny myself another opportunity to point out what’s so wrong about leaders in Big Business.
- Since 1978 CEO pay increased 1,322%. This in contrast to the average American worker whose pay over the same period increased 18%.
- CEOs now get paid 254 times more than their workers.
People have been pointing to the problem – the obscene inequity in income and wealth between those at the top and those in the middle and at the bottom – for years. But nothing has been done about it. Each year it only gets worse.
Last week though was slightly, very slightly different. JPMorgan’s CEO got slapped for being greedy by his shareholders. And JPMorgan’s board got slapped for being timorous by its shareholders. Alas, the shareholder vote was nonbinding. Still, a mere 31% of investors supported the board’s pay plan. Specifically, most shareholders voted against giving Jamie Dimon a “special award.” What was this “special award”? A bonus of $52.6 million – in addition obviously to his usual humungous pay package.
Ironically, the board supported Dimon’s “special award” in a miserably misguided effort to keep Dimon in place – Dimon who has already been in place since 2005! How nutty can you get? What is the board afraid of? Fresh blood? A new pair of eyes and ears? Change of any kind? Or is the bank so fragile the board is worried that without their man at the helm it will collapse?
The shareholder vote is an insult to the board and a humiliation to Dimon who, by the way, is already worth over a billion dollars. What’s with these guys? Leaders like Dimon have a lust for money and for power – which means they’ll never change on their own and they’ll hold on so long as they can. This means is that unless and until the system changes, it’s up to members of corporate boards – who presumably are not automatons – to rein in their executives. And to stop paying them increasingly obscene amounts of money year after year after year.