Confidential To All The Dealbreaker Thespians: Have We Found The Gig For You

Author:: Bess Levin
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Apr 27, 2009

Here at Dealbreaker we are well aware of the fact that there exists a small but passionate group of financial services hacks in the audience just dying to give acting a try, but have yet to do so because of a crippling fear of the prospect of a complete and total career change. Because we're always working for you, we've done some digging and found the perfect crossover gig in which to dip your toes. While Madoff didn't enlist the services of actors for his scheme (that we know of), lots of smaller scams, like Houston-based JaxTrece, are relying on individuals who can both act and talk shop. That could be you!

Curiously, in early October, Ramon sent an e-mail to an Austin actors group: She was seeking a male actor in his 50s or 60s with a New York accent to make an appearance at what she said was a Houston fundraising event. Another document filed in a lawsuit and said to have been found in Ramon's computer describes Scrabanek's back story down to his children's names and his residence (the Time Warner building in New York City), and details his attitude: "typical Jewish New York . . . doesn't really care about anyone but yourself, snotty and stuck up."
Some now wonder whether the man they met was actually an actor earning $500 an hour to play a part in what the Justice Department says was an investment scam that defrauded investors of millions of dollars.

The past couple of weeks, some might argue, have been the worst of Jamie Dimon's professional career. Although being fired by Sandy Weill in 1998 was obviously a distressing time in Dimon's life, a JPMorgan trader's multi-billion dollar (and counting) loss appears to be even more painful for the CEO, who now has a reputation (and a title: "America's Least Hated Banker") to defend. While it's unlikely that the blunder will cost him his job, every article written questioning Dimon's judgment, suggesting that he is in fact fallible, and wondering aloud if he is simply a pretty face (that is about to get the regulation it has vociferously argued against rammed down its throat) clearly hurts. So far, Dimon has chosen to frame the situation, at least publicly, as a group fuck-up, one for which the responsibility is shared among himself, The Whale, The Whale's bosses, and The Whale's bosses' bosses. Over the weekend, though, a heretofore unmentioned character, whose actions set in motion the events that served to tarnish JD's halo, was added to story. And now, Dimon has a place to channel his anger: on a bloodsucking vermin whose days are numbered. Ever since JPMorgan Chase disclosed a multibillion-dollar trading loss this month, the central mystery has been how a bank known for its skill at risk management could err so badly. As early as 2010, the senior banker who has been blamed for the debacle, Ina Drew, began to lose her grip on the bank’s chief investment office, according to current and former traders. She had guided the bank through some of the most rugged moments of the 2008 financial crisis, earning the trust of Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, in the process. But after contracting Lyme disease in 2010, she was frequently out of the office for a critical period, when her unit was making riskier bets, and her absences allowed long-simmering internal divisions and clashing egos to come to the fore, the traders said. The morning conference calls Ms. Drew had presided over devolved into shouting matches between her deputies in New York and London, the traders said. That discord in 2010 and 2011 contributed to the chief investment office’s losing trades in 2012, the current and former bankers said. “When Ina was there, things ran smoothly,” one former trader there said. But Ms. Drew’s firm hand began to weaken after she contracted Lyme disease. Her absences opened the door for tensions among her deputies to flare into the open...Most significant, her deputy in New York was increasingly at loggerheads with her deputy in London who spearheaded the strategy behind the losing bet, Achilles Macris, the current and former traders said. But there was only so much she could do when she was away. So, first off, the tick that bit Drew is a dead man (though probably a woman, as "the female adult is usually the one causing the most bites as males usually die after mating"). If people thought Dimon was mad after being informed of the losses, just wait. He's going to find that bitch tick and shoot her with a cannon. Next, it's time to put some safeguards in place to protect his bank from anymore "surprises." Effective immediately, JPMorgan employees are banned from venturing into the forest, for any reason whatsoever. Same goes for grasslands, marshes, and anywhere tall grass grows. Anyone planning on prancing through the meadows in slow motion to meet up with and embrace a loved one in some kind of romantic gesture can forget it. The JMPorgan Outdoor Club is officially disband. Contact with children who are cub scouts is forbidden. Any girl scouts who attempt to set foot on the premises in order to sell cookies will be shot on sight. (These people are breeding grounds for ticks, what with their expeditions into the woods for merit badges and whatnot. He's going first derivative here, while at the same time trying to not enact mandates that make him look ridiculous.) Discord at Key JPMorgan Unit Is Faulted in Loss [NYT]