Having Said All That, He Continues To Prop A Ladder Up Against His Open Bedroom Window Each Night, Just In Case

Rochdale analyst Dick Bové loves fairy tales as much as the next guy. He loves the romance, he loves the drama, he loves the idea of magical footwear. Does he start every morning asking the question, "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest analyst of them all?"? Yes. Does he consider Mike Mayo and Meredith Whitney his evil step-sisters? Yes. Does he dream about being awoken from his slumber by a handsome prince? But even Dick knows that five minutes after the prince wakes you up you're going to be bitching to your girlfriends about being stuck with this asshole who lets the dishes pile up like you're the god damn maid service. Everyone knows that when the handsome prince kissed the beautiful Snow White she awakened and everyone lived happily ever after. “It’s in the book” said comic John Standley when discussing another one solution character Little Bo Peep. This “one solution fits all,” or what I like to call the Snow White Syndrome, is a core belief of most who look at the financial crisis. There are three examples of this in today’s press: Just about everyone is unhappy that the EU leaders could not solve all of the European debt problems with one single solution – i.e., creating Euro Bonds that absorbed all individual country debt. In today’s Financial Times Senator Sherrod Brown (OH, Dem.) and Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher have a single solution to the nation’s banking problem – i.e., break up the big banks. The Wall Street Journal has a different single solution to the problems in banking – i.e., eliminate hedging in bank portfolios. Then there are the other big-time single solutions: The central banks in the North Atlantic Communities believe that by printing money economic woes will go away. Conservatives argue that by cutting taxes, this nation’s economic woes will disappear. The President and Congress believe that by passing laws the economic cycle will be eliminated (“kinda” like the dot-comers who had already eliminated the economic cycle in the 1990s). The Snow White Syndrome is everywhere. We only need to find that prince with the potent lips. The problem, of course, is that no single solution quickly arrived at is likely to achieve the results promised. Snow White Syndrome [Rochdale Research]

Author:
Bess Levin
Updated:
Jan 14, 2019
Original:
May 24, 2012

Snow White Syndrome
Everyone knows that when the handsome prince kissed the beautiful Snow White she awakened and everyone lived happily ever after. “It’s in the book” said comic John Standley when discussing another one solution character Little Bo Peep. This “one solution fits all,” or what I like to call the Snow White Syndrome, is a core belief of most who look at the financial crisis. There are three examples of this in today’s press: Just about everyone is unhappy that the EU leaders could not solve all of the European debt problems with one single solution – i.e., creating Euro Bonds that absorbed all individual country debt. In today’s Financial Times Senator Sherrod Brown (OH, Dem.) and Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher have a single solution to the nation’s banking problem – i.e., break up the big banks. The Wall Street Journal has a different single solution to the problems in banking – i.e., eliminate hedging in bank portfolios.
Then there are the other big-time single solutions: The central banks in the North Atlantic Communities believe that by printing money economic woes will go away. Conservatives argue that by cutting taxes, this nation’s economic woes will disappear. The President and Congress believe that by passing laws the economic cycle will be eliminated (“kinda” like the dot-comers who had already eliminated the economic cycle in the 1990s). The Snow White Syndrome is everywhere. We only need to find that prince with the potent lips. The problem, of course, is that no single solution quickly arrived at is likely to achieve the results promised.

Think about it.

Snow White Syndrome [Rochdale Research]

News

As you may have noticed, Jamie Dimon has had some unwanted attention thrown his way over the last several weeks, on account of one of his employees losing a few billion dollars. Though the JPMorgan CEO has been dealing with public displays of hate previously reserved for Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs, and will certainly be on the receiving end of a lot more tomorrow when he testifies on Capitol Hill, he has had a few people come to his (and his bank's) defense. Yesterday Stephen Schwarzman told Bloomberg to lay off JD and JPM, noting that "occasional losses are inevitable" and "publicly excoriating JPMorgan serves no purpose except to reduce people’s confidence in the financial system," while former Goldman exec Bill Archer said the whale fail makes him just "kind of shrug." Lee Bollinger, who is President of Columbia and chairman of the Federal Bank of New York's board of directors told the Journal that Dimon shouldn't step down from his post as a director, as some have requested, and that those who cite conflicts of interest have a "false understanding of how [the Fed] works." Some individuals from the Columbia community read Bollinger's comment and, spoiler alert, are not happy. Enter, a strongly worded letter. Mr. Lee Bollinger President of Columbia University Office of the President 202 Low Library 535 West 116th Street, Mail Code 4309 New York, NY 10027 Dear President Bollinger, As faculty, alumni and students of Columbia University, we are writing to express our deep disappointment in your recent decision to support JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon’s continued membership on the Board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. As the Chairman of the Board of the New York Fed, your unambiguous duty - as stated by the Guide to Conduct – is to maintain “the integrity, dignity, and reputation of the Federal Reserve System . . . and to avoid actions that might impair the effectiveness of System operations or in any way tend to discredit the System.” By supporting Mr. Dimon’s tenure you abdicated this basic responsibility. By echoing Mr. Ben Bernanke’s remarks that it is up to Congress to address this problem, you denied your duty to ensure the integrity of the Fed. By stating that Congress has more pressing issues to address than this one, you, in essence, urged inaction by all parties capable of affecting this important change. Surely you understand that a functioning financial system is a pre-requisite of our country’s economic recovery. By characterizing those who wish to see Mr. Dimon resign as “foolish” and in possession of a “false understanding” of how the Fed works, you have added insult – and inaccuracy – to the injury of encouraging this institution to continue in its current form. It is worth reminding you that JPMorgan Chase is currently under investigation for its recent $3 billion trading loss – a loss Mr. Dimon initially denied and then characterized as a ‘tempest in a teapot.’ It may also bear repeating that Mr. Dimon has long campaigned aggressively against important regulatory reforms designed to prevent excessive risk taking by Too Big To Fail institutions – institutions the Federal Reserve saved with $3 trillion dollars in special lending facilities and which Congress bailed out with $700 billion of taxpayers’ money. Certainly Mr. Dimon has no place as a leader of this institution. We urge you to reverse your support for Mr. Dimon and call for his immediate resignation. By way of reminder, there is precedent for this kind of action. In April 2011, Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of General Electric, stepped down from the NY Fed after it was clear that GE Capital would be regulated by the Fed as a ‘systematically important’ financial institution. As one of the largest banks in the world, JP Morgan is similarly – if not more ‘systemically important.’ As an educator, you have a special responsibility to demonstrate moral and intellectual credibility, something you have failed to do in this situation. As the president of a university, you have a responsibility to ensure that students have the best possible opportunities upon graduation. Surely you understand the connection between the unemployment crisis facing young people in America and the 2008 financial collapse. That collapse not only threatened the employment potential of millions of American students, but also risked the fiscal health of the parents and grandparents who co-signed their educational loans. That you would choose to uphold the interests of major financial institutions over students and their families is unimaginable. We certainly hope that the contributions made to Columbia by JPMorgan – sums north of $500,000 – had nothing to do with your decision. Three years after the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, the country is struggling to rebuild its economy. A stable and appropriately governed financial system is a critical pre-requisite of our recovery. As the Chairman of the NY Fed, we urge you to take the obvious step of demanding Mr. Dimon’s resignation. Thank you, Current Students, Alumni and Faculty of Columbia University Richard Adams Graduate Student and Alumnus Marcellus Andrews Professor of Economics Columbia University John Atlas President of the National Housing Institute Charles H. Revson Fellow, 2004 Partha Banerjee J-School, 2000 Hilary Beattie Asst. Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology in Psychiatry Carl Bettendorf Alumnus and Adjunct Faculty Lila Braine Dana Burnell Alumni Sylvia Bettendorf Student Jamie Chen CC Class of '09 Paul Colson Faculty Jonathan Crissman Student Mina Dadgar Alumni Carolyn Douglas Associate Professor of Psychiatry Nnaemeka Ekwelum Class of 2012 Tim Foreman Student David Friedman Officer Danielle G. Student Nancy Goody Alumnae -GS of Arch & HP Warren Green Administrator Robert Hanning William D. Hartung Center for International Policy Columbia College Class of 1978 James Hone Faculty Bonnie Kaufman Faculty, Medical School Jee Kim Columbia College, ‘95 Susan Lob Adjunct Faculty and Alumni Barbara Lundblad Faculty Union Theological Seminary John Markowitz Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Alumnus College '76, GSAS '78, P&S '82 Rangi McNeil School of the Arts Alumni Sara Minard Faculty Federick Neuhouser Professor of Philosophy Michael Newell Kaveh Niazi Alumni Jeffrey Ordower Columbia College Class of 1991 Alexandra Pines Class of 2016 Ai-jen Poo Director National Domestic Workers Alliance Bill Ragen Columbia College 1980 Yuliya Rimsky Columbia University Alumnus Class of 2012 & SIPA student Class of 2014 Katherine Roberts Alumna, GSAS Eva Salzman Alumni Jeff Schneider Alumni Shruti Sehgal BC Alumnus, Class of 2011 Eric J. Schoenberg Adjunct Associate Professor Columbia Business School The Honorable David Segal Former RI state representative CC ‘01 Anat Shenker-Osorio Founder and Principal, ASO Communications, Columbia College '99 Kobi Skolnick Current student of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Class of 2013 Jill Strauss Denise J. Tartaglia Alumni Stephanie Taylor Co-Founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Columbia University alumni, SOA '07 Alan Wallach Alumnus Mark Watson Alumnus James Williams Officer Libraries Thomas J. Yager Associate Research Scientist, Mailman School of Public Health

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Last month, Rochedale analyst Dick Bové sent out a note to clients that began with what he dubbed "some interesting stats." Said stats were salaries of the New York Yankees' top infielders ("not including promotional deals"!) versus those of JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, Wells Fargo's John Stumpf, Citigroup's Vikram Pandit, and Bank of America's Brian Moynihan. The baseball players' compensation totaled about $80 million, the CEOs' $65 million. Fair? Bové didn't think so, noting that while the talentless hacks in the Bronx have won but single World Series in the last 10 years, the banks run by the aforementioned CEOs "impact virtually every American household" (and if pressed to, could surely bring home at least a few Major League Baseball championships). "Clearly, society values the New York Yankees infield above that of the leaders of the banking industry even without a World Series ring," Bové concluded sarcastically, shouting "nailed it" at Mr. Giraffe. Obviously, Bové is of the mind that it's a crock how little these chief executives are paid considering all they do compared to noncontributing zeroes like Alex Rodriguez and Co. It's unclear if the former head of MLB's players' union caught Bové's riff or if not but last night he offered something of a rebuttal and, spoiler alert, he thinks Wall Street pay is bull shit. Appearing at the New York University School of Law on Tuesday night to discuss the 40th anniversary of the first baseball strike and the rise of the players' association, Marvin Miller, the 95-year-old former union head, spoke for 68 minutes and delivered a blistering criticism of corporate pay. He also said collusion by owners in the mid-1980s was worse than the Black Sox scandal in 1919 and claimed the first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, may have been a member of the Klu Klux Klan. "Let's take chief executive officers of important corporations, or the stock exchange or Wall Street firms," he said. "The typical way that compensation is set is for the board of directors, most of whom if not all of whom have been appointed directly by the CEO, decide what the CEO's salary should be, or they have a committee, a compensation committee composed of board members. "The first thing about that is that here you have a direct conflict of interest, because sitting on a board are executives of other corporations, and what they are doing is adding ammunition to their own quest for higher salaries. And it's such an obvious conflict of interest that it's awful. Of course they're going to vote for higher salaries." He said the directors are at fault because "they don't pay for it. It's paid for by stockholders, who have had no voice on what the salaries and compensation and perks of the chief executive should be." He then compared the system to baseball, where the average salary on opening day this year was $3.4 million and the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez topped players at $30 million. "There always has been and is a rule that no contract of a player is valid unless it is signed by the franchise owner or somebody designated by the franchise owner in his place," Miller said. "In other words, no salary is put on paper and becomes valid until the man who is going to pay for it, the owner of the franchise, has signed the contract. A better check and balance you can't find anywhere." According to Miller, "the more democratic thing is to require the approval of a majority of the stockholders." Whose Pay Is More Deserved: CEOs or Ball Players? [Real Time Economics] Marvin Miller Blasts Corporate Pay [AP] Earlier: Dick “Fire A-Rod” Bové: Underpaid Bank CEOs Should Seek Yankees Tryout

News

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