CNBC’s Erin Burnett is interviewing Jamie Dimon right now at the Waldorf Astoria. So far, according to everyone’s favorite boy toy CEO:
- You know this but just to reiterate: JPMorgan “neither asked for nor needed the government’s money.” Paulson put a gun to JD’s head.
- While some banks are hoarding, JPM is “trying to do lending in the right way.” As you might’ve figured out, loaning money to any crack whore who asks for it (Alan Greenspan) is not a good idea. He’s still begging for it, that “last” hit, but according to Dimon, “banks have to learn to say no.”
- Commercial loan balances are up 18 percent.
- 2009 is going to hurt, (mostly) all due to everyone getting canned.
- Erin: “What else can you predict for the future?”
Dimon: “This is why I hate going on TV, because people ask the same questions over and over.”
DB: “Awk.”
- Chance of a real depression? “Very, very small.”
- Likely due to spilled bong water and roach clips, “Bear is turning out to be much more difficult than we anticipated.”
- There will be no JP GoldGan Sachsley: “Doesn’t make sense for major investment banks to merge.”
- Erin: “So, you wake up in the morning and look at Jamie Dimon in the mirror and–”
Jamie: “I wake up in the morning and look at Becky Quick.” Carl is there, too, happily munching on snacks, and Joe Kernan is down on the corner weeping.
- The board “will make the decision on my bonus, hopefully they’ll do the right thing.” ($100 million. That’s right, a unit, baby.)
first. awk
“neither asked for nor needed the government’s money.”
Suuuuuuureee Jamie.
erin’s a fucking idiot…
shine on you crazy Dimon
Erin loves old Jamie
Does Huckman know abt Jamie and Becky? And Erin seemed pretty collegial with him (not in a dirty way). I’m curious how many off the record chats (also not dirty) have they had since this mess started?
Jamie will knock you out!
The Mexican Dude on Squawk has been known to receive the Dirty Sanchez from JD.
Erin Burnett digging in her nose on air. Tsk tsk.
As if JD wouldn’t auto-fellate in the middle of GCS on Xmas for a chance to run JPGoldman MorganSachs.
JD looooooves the babes. Surrounded himself with koo-laid drinking femmes at bankOne and at JP.
JPMorgan & Jamie Dimon. Two names of similar epic proportion, with just as equal an apocryphal image. Remember that in the land of the blind (our economic times/ Wall Street firms), the one eyed man is king…what a hypocrite…
@12 boohoo you wining little bitch shut the fuck up. JD owns you.
Maria is to Todd as Erin is to Jamie?
Anyone know if Dimon gets to have his way with Erin after the segment backstage?
Maria is to Todd as Erin is to Jamie?
Maria is to Todd as Erin is to Jamie?
He kind of looks like the doctor who does chemical skin peels and advertises in the subway…his name escapes me.
Anyone know if/think Erin goes bald?
anyone know if/thinks Erin goes bald?
Dr. Zizmore…..he was busted a few years back for insurance fraud….Thank You Dr. Zizmore!
doctor zizmor!
maybe Dimon gets to pop the pimples on Erin’s ass after the segment…
How sweet of a name is “Jamie Dimon” though?
It’s right up there with Goldman Sachs, but it’s concentrated in one homo sapien.
I bet Bess could kick Becky Quick’s AND Joe Kernan’s butts at the same time.
@4 LOL.
Smithers!
ya but #25, who would you rather nail? Bess or Erin? (or Jamie?)
@RonBurgundy – do I have to choose between Bess and Erin? Why not both?
@13
I’ll admit, I used to work for that firm, you obsequious middle aged cunt. Don’t make me take that meager $457.83 weekly unemployment check you probably recieve and do something your mother should have done a long time ago with a hanger.
Erin is one more talking head – looks but no brains. She is dumber than a box of rocks….although if she were Speaker of the House at least she’d SOUND intelligent. Pelosi is so busy blowing hot air that she makes a hairdryer obsolete.
They had better stop. WIDECLOPS is getting very angry o——-!——–0
@ 24 LOL
@28: you Coleman from Trading Places?
“cracked crab or lobster sir?”
Coleman: “why not both?”
“extra primo special, sir!”
is Dimon a jew? Those people really put this country into one big Ponzi scheme.
@30, so are you saying you’d rather nail Becky because she’s smarter than Erin? If that’s your logic, then it’s flawed. You want the dumb chicks…
Dimon definite a MOT (Member of the Tribe)and…NEEL KASHKARI IS A DIRTY LITTLE CHAI WALLAH
$457.83/wk? Can’t wait… thanks for the memories JD!
i’d rather nail Becky cuz i bet she’s more liberalized in the bedroom than Erin. Erin looks a bit uptight. Becky shows a lot more thigh than Erin in full body, sitting on a stool situation.
stool situation?
yuck.
All I know is that I wouldn’t want to nail that fat pig Bartiromo.
JD is Greek Ortho. That means he be a goy kicking some hebe tush.
Dimon = the MAN
-MoneygripWisdom
@18
Take a closer look, Dr. Zismore is WAYYY fuglier than JD.
You gotta give it to the man. He and his firm have fared the best of everyone. I’m sure though that if he could go back and do it again, he’d let Bear die. Totally. Not. Worth. It.
Zismor looks like Bruce Wasserstein, nothing like Dimon. Don’t you people ride the subway?
@29
clown capital suck my big brown juicy salty balls you brainfart
Agreed with 45, maybe Wasserstein 10-20 years/lbs ago
What about Bill Kristol? They could be brothers.
Erin Burnett maybe one of the prettiest financial anchors there in but the dumbest of all.
# 49
If you watch Erin’s two shows then you belong to her club – the Dumb Club.
there are informative financial shows of the same time slots from other channels.
Winthrop H. Smith, Jr
December 5, 2008
Merrill Lynch & Co. Special Shareholder’s Meeting
Thank you for allowing me to say a few words on this most important
morning. I will say more about you in a moment, but I just wanted to
thank you up front for your leadership and all you have attempted to do
this past year.
Fellow Shareholders, I speak to you today as a 28 year employee, a
shareholder and the son of one of the founding fathers of Merrill
Lynch.
On January 6th, 1914, Charlie Merrill opened a one man shop just a few
blocks from where we are today. A year later he was joined by his
friend, Eddie Lynch and the first Merrill, Lynch & Co. was launched.
One year later, my father joined the firm straight out of Amherst
College. Thus began a wonderful partnership and friendship that lasted
a life time.
Like Merrill Magowan I have been privileged to know every CEO of
Merrill Lynch from Charlie Merrill to John Thain. Most of them,
including John, were principled leaders who never placed their
interests ahead of those of the firm. Most of them valued and promoted
the principles that Charlie Merrill created and most of them cared
deeply for the welfare of their fellow colleagues.
Merrill Lynch grew and thrived through the tough as well as the good
times. By 2001 we were one of the most successful and respected global
financial firms in the world with a stock price that hit $80 early that
year. The ROI to both our employees and shareholders was superb.
$100,000 invested in the MER IPO was worth $2.3 million in early 2001,
But Merrill Lynch was more than a profitable company. It was a family.
It was a culture. Merrill Lynch to so many of us was Mother Merrill,
and it is so sad that the CEO who preceeded John Thain and the Board of
Directors had no understanding of what that meant. Arthur Levitt, the
former Chair of the SEC once commented that of all the Wall Street
firms only Merrill Lynch had a soul. A soul! Can you imagine
someone; much less the Chair of the SEC, saying a company had a soul?
Well it did, because the tone, the culture, the ethics that we were all
so proud of began that day, January 6th, 1914.
It began with Charlie Merrill’s first rule that the Interests of the
Customer always came first. It began with his partners’ understanding
that they were a Team and that no one’s ego was more important than the
team. It began with the knowledge that the primary assets of the firm
went in and out of their door every day. They insisted on Respect for
everyone. It began with an understanding that Merrill was part of a
broader Community and that we had an obligation to support that
community. It began with the simple belief that Integrity was
everything and when a mistake was made, it was owned up to, corrected
and never covered up. These principles of Charlie Merrill were passed
to my father and then to Mike McCarthy, and subsequent CEOs and the
culture endured because of the stories that were told to new Merrill
Lynchers about our predecessors.
We knew the story of Charlie Merrill telling his clients to sell before
the crash of 1929, of Don Regan testifying in Congress and saying “We
goofed” and then making the clients whole for our mistake. We knew the
story of Roger Birk realizing we erred in selling Baldwin United
annuities to our clients and making them whole. We heard the story of
Dan Tully facing down a CEO bully in his office when that person
insulted one of Dan’s teammates. Stories maintained the culture and
created a bond between the founding partners and those who worked at
Merrill 80 years later.
Merrill Lynch was a brand that we were so proud to wear on our heart
and even our ties. We had a swagger, and we were damn proud to be part
of “The Thundering Herd.” We loved being the underdog and doing things
others thought we couldn’t accomplish. We were optimists that always
knew we would get better and better and be number one in whatever we
chose to pursue.
People like Bill Schreyer reminded us that he had never met a rich
pessimist.
We even took on Goldman Sachs in the 80’s and 90’s, and by the time I
resigned in 2001 they were damned scared that we were competing with
them successfully everywhere in the world. YPF, Shanghai Petrochemical,
China Telecom, Indosat, CVRD, Telefonica D’Espana were only some of the
highly sought after privatization mandates that we won around the
world. Our private client assets totaled $1.5 Trillion We were proud of
our founders, we were proud of our leaders, we were proud of our
colleagues, we were proud of what Merrill Lynch was in 2001.We were
proud to be the leader in private wealth management. We were proud of
our unique global footprint. We were proud of our leadership in both
debt and equity underwriting as well as M&A. We were proud of our asset
management business. But most of all we were proud of our principles
that we inherited from Charlie Merrill.
Many of us who have departed still get together. At one recent
gathering a former senior executive of the Equity Division and now a
successful executive elsewhere emailed this to the organizers. “I
thought the setting was terrific, but it paled in comparison to the
people gathered. What a wonderful collection of character and talent.
Those years we had at Merrill were like catching lightening in a
bottle.” Like catching lightening in a bottle! That captures so much
of what our culture created and what we felt and why Merrill was so
successful! We were not about brick and mortar and cold numbers. We
were about character, spirit, leadership, ethics and pride.
As one former CEO said to us when times got tough, “Just remember, we
are the only firm that doesn’t have to compete against Merrill Lynch.”
At this point I want to make it very clear that I support the merger
with Bank of America, and I am thankful for John Thain’s clear and
decisive leadership at that moment of crisis this fall. I am encouraged
by the respect that Ken Lewis says he has for our great franchise and
for the many thousands of fine professionals who are still part of the
Merrill Lynch team. I do hope Ken and his colleagues at Bank of
America will allow the firm that they bought to thrive under its new
ownership, and that they will appreciate the strong culture that made
Merrill what it was by 2001 and will also appreciate the many fine
people who hung in and are still with Merrill Lynch, including members
of my own family.
All of us want this new organization to succeed and become preeminent.
We all know that what has occurred is the given reality and it is time
to move forward. However, before we do. Some things need to be said
for the record.
Today did not have to come. In the past it was Merrill Lynch that came
to the rescue of Goodbody, White Weld and Becker. It was Merrill Lynch
that strong and successful firms like Fenner & Beane, CJ Devine, Smith
New Court, DSP in India, Midland Walwyn in Canada and Mercury Asset
Management wanted to join. Merrill always thrived in times of turmoil
and grew market share. Today did not have to come.
Today is not the result of the sub-prime mess or synthetic CDOs. They
are the symptoms. This is the story of failed leadership and the
failure of a Board of Directors to understand what was happening to
this great company, and its failure to take action soon enough.
I stand here today and say shame to both the current as well as the
former Directors who allowed this former CEO to wreak havoc on this
great company.
Shame on them for allowing this former CEO to consciously and openly
disparage Mother Merrill, throw our founding principles down a flight
of stairs and tear out the soul of the firm.
In the fall of 2001, I was asked to remain as Vice Chairman of Merrill
Lynch. But in a private meeting it was obvious that this CEO to be had
no respect for our history, for our culture and for the five principles
that had served us so well. I wanted to stay. My heart said stay. But I
knew I could not. I would not have been able to look myelf in the
mirror each morning! That was a day I never thought could happen.
Shame on members of the Board for never asking any of us who loved this
firm, why we had to leave rather than remain part of something we could
not in good conscience support. Some of us had the means to leave.
Unfortunately many others did not and they will tell you how unpleasant
it was. Just ask them.
Shame on these Directors for allowing this former CEO to rid the firm
of thousands of years of experience. Shame of them for allowing this
former CEO to surround himself with many people who did not have the
perspective of other market cycles and the experience of time. Shame
for allowing this CEO to surround himself with many people who did not
share the same values that made us great and appreciate our winning
culture. Shame on them for allowing this CEO to cut costs and
businesses so severely and bluntly for the sake of short term earnings
that he cut out future growth. Shame on them for allowing him to over
leverage the firm and fill the balance sheet with toxic waste to create
short term earnings. Shame of them for allowing good people like Dan
Bayly and a few others to be used as scapegoats to settle the US
Government’s Enron case against Merrill Lynch and for allowing these
wonderful human beings and loyal Merrill Lynchers to go to Federal
Prison unjustly. Fortunately, the Court of Appeals overturned the
sentence.
Shame on them for not knowing the Merrill Lynch helicopter and plane
and other perquisites were being used irresponsibly.
Shame, shame, shame for allowing one man to consciously unwind a
culture and rip out the soul of this great firm. Shame on them for
allowing this former Stan O’Neal to retire with a $160 million
retirement package and shame on them for not resigning themselves.
I am not alone in these sentiments. So many former and present Merrill
Lynchers share this anger – this sadness about what was allowed to
occur. Just this week a former Merrill Lynch senior women executive
emailed me and said,
“It is heartbreaking to see what greed and the absence of principles
did to MER, one of the finest companies in America.”
What breaks my heart even more is to see the financial damage that has
been inflicted on so many families that devoted their life to the Firm
and to all our stakeholders.
Where is the accountability? No wonder that the Main Street that
learned to trust Merrill Lynch in the 1940’s has lost faith in Wall
Street in 2008. Merrill Lynch is not alone in this. But in the past
Merrill Lynch rose above the crowd and distanced itself from the greed
that brought others down. Our principled leaders steered us through
many challenges, and we emerged stronger because of them.
But I must give the Devil his due. I applaud the Board for selecting
John Thain. John inherited a mess, but he did so many of the right
things. He reached out to the past; he reached out to the people of
Merrill Lynch around the world and showed them his humanity as well as
his intelligence. John had the intellect, the experience, the
humility, the common sense and the integrity to pull it off had not the
markets melted down this past fall. Then he had the wisdom as Kenny
Rogers sang to know when to fold them so that Merrill did not go the
way of Lehman.
We thank you John not only for what you tried to do and what you did
do. We thank you because we know you knew what Mother Merrill really
stood for. As a competitor at Goldman Sachs you respected our past and
our present and you were serious about restoring our valued principles
once you became our leader.
I am personally pleased that you will be leading the new Merrill Lynch
that will operate under the Bank of America umbrella. So many of us
are hopeful that the brand will survive, that the strengths in Global
Private Wealth Management and Global Investment Banking in particular
will be recognized and maintained. We hope that you and your
colleagues will continue to tell the stories that will maintain the
principles and the culture that all began just down the block on
January 6th, 1914 and enabled Merrill Lynch to be the firm it was in
2001.
Merrill Lynch has always been Bullish on America. Now we hope that
you, John, and Ken Lewis will make sure that Bank of America will not
only be Bullish on Merrill Lynch but will carry forward the Merrill
Lynch principles along with those of Bank of America and continue a
“Tradition of Trust” that will help to restore Main Street trust in
Wall Street once again.
There are many parallels today with the world and the economy that
existed in 1940 when Charlie Merrill and my dad and their talented
teammates set upon the course of taking Wall Street to Main Street.
In 1999, Warren Bennis and Dan Heenan, two distinguished professors of
business wrote a book called “Co-Leaders”. One chapter was about the
remarkable partnership and friendship that existed between Charlie
Merrill and my father.
The closing two paragraphs read as follows:
“When Charlie Merrill and Winthrop Smith entered Wall Street, Americans
were wary stock buyers. At most only 15% of households were in the
market. Today almost half of the adult population has money socked
away in equities. The financial world has changed, in large part
because of these farsighted co-leaders. Investor confidence is at an
all-time high. More people have money in the stock marker than every
before.
Working together, Merrill and Smith made ordinary people bullish on
America. Thanks to them, people’s capitalism is a reality. Besides
democratizing investing, they helped provide the US industry with much-
needed capital for expansion. In tandem they were truly, in Merrill
Lynch’s famous catch phrase, “a breed apart.” “
Now new co-leaders in the form of Ken Lewis and John Thain have that
same golden opportunity – in fact the responsibility – to restore the
trust and the confidence that Main Street must have in Wall Street as
this time of turmoil. There is no reason why this new partnership of
Bank of America and Merrill Lynch and its co-leaders of 2008 can not
achieve for America and the World what Charlie Merrill and my father
did 68 years ago.
While today did not have to come and should not have come, it did! So,
I wish all at Merrill Lynch and their colleagues at Bank of America the
best of fortune in the years ahead. This new firm can and should be the
leading global investment firm in the years ahead. It should be great
and make all of you who will be part of it as proud as we were of the
Merrill Lynch we knew and loved!
I will end by saying to my many Merrill Lynch friends, my extended
Merrill Lynch family around the World. Thanks for the memories.
No one can ever take those away.
It was a Hell of a run!
Hey, man, you don’t talk to Jamie Dimon. You listen to him. The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he’ll… uh… well, you’ll say “hello” to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you. He won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say, “do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you”… I mean I’m no, I can’t… I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s… he’s a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas…
@51: DB ALREADY REPORTED THE SPEECH!!
Jamie Dimon’s taking credit for all of the risk controls and conservative lending practices Bill Harrison installed. All Dimon did was increase the prop desks, overpay for a worthless BSC, and take on a ton of balance sheet issues w/ WM. 30k I-bankers. Really? Is 25k not enough? 15k? Wow.
@52 …very nice…Apocalypse now
Erin Burnett sucks more than just Jamie Dimon’s dick. She single-handedly defeats the purpose of watching financial news with presumptive questions,apocolyptic predictions, and general laziness in research. Essentially, she is good at spitting up what she has had someone read for her in the Journal and she tries so desperately to present an educated, omniscient perspective. CNBC should be more worried about the content of the guests they interview as opposed to the pre-fabricated musings of some narcissistic airhead. Jamie Dimon has gotten a lot of credit JPMorgan’s steps in stabilizing the financial system. Whether he deserves any of it or not (given the risk associated with WaMu & Bear) the man at least deserves a chance to get a word in between Erin Burnett’s constant proddings. It must be easy for someone who is undoubtedly attractive to be that completely self-absorbed. But perhaps she should consider worshiping herself off camera, and do her job. CNBC, Fox News, the entire system is a medium, a “channel” to reach an audience. In the case of those networks it is a financial audience. Not one that cares about how smart Erin Burnett is. Shut that bitch up.
Hey leave Erin alone you guys are just jealous she didn’t suck your cock