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]

[caption id="attachment_73269" align="alignright" width="260" caption="People who *can* dance"][/caption] There are a lot of things Jamie Dimon is very, very good at: building a fortress balance sheet, chatting up reporters in elevators, doing sake bombs, and being appreciably better looking than his peers, to name just a few. In other areas, the JPMorgan CEO has left room for improvement. For example, his dancing skills, about which Dimon's own wife and mother are unsparing in their directness at this point. JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon “is a terrible dancer,” his wife, Judy Dimon, said last night at a gala for Ballet Hispanico, of which JPMorgan was the lead sponsor. She then moved her shoulders straight up and down to demonstrate what the 56 year-old leader of the biggest US bank, with $2.27 trillion of assets at year-end, does on the dance floor. Jame Dimon's mom, Themis Dimon, was no more encouraging. Is he a good dancer? "No," she said, shaking her head. Jamie Dimon wasn't present to prove otherwise. “Unfortunately he couldn’t be here tonight because he had another commitment,” said his wife, a Ballet Hispanico board member and the event’s honorary chairman. Too bad. Jamie Dimon missed a good party. His wife, in a slim-fitting coral gown, danced a salsa with New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, reminiscent of his moves in the end zone after scoring a touchdown. Speaking of people who can hold their own on the dance floor? “We like to dance,” Jamie Dimon's father Theodore Dimon, there with his wife and Jamie's twin brother, told Bloomberg. “We dance the fox trot -- it’s nice and easy.” Scene Last Night: Victor Cruz, Dimon for Ballet Hispanico [Bloomberg]

Mike Mayo: I think what I hear UBS saying in their presentation is, if I'm an affluent customer, I'll feel a lot better going to UBS if they have a 13 percent capital ratio than another big bank with a 10 percent ratio, do you agree with that or disagree? Jamie Dimon: So you would go to UBS and not JPMorgan? Mike Mayo: I didn't say that, that's their argument. Jamie Dimon: That's why I'm richer than you.

Back in October, the most wonderful aspect of the JPMorgan Whale Tale emerged in the pages of Vanity Fair: the day Vice-Chairman Jimmy Lee barricaded himself in his office determined to come up with a way to help Jamie Dimon, and after hours of thinking real hard, summoned his six secretaries and told them they had a job to do, which was getting Tom Brady on the horn so he could deliver a pep talk sure to cheer up the boss. Was the call kind of awkward, considering the two had never spoken and Brady's lack of useful investment ideas likely meant his big speech involved not much more than  "Even Super Bowl champion quarterbacks have bad days" and "Keep your chin up out there?" Probably. And yet some sort of bond was clearly forged, which would explain why Dimon felt compelled to throw Brady this bone:

He's got this. JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has the experience needed to manage the fallout from trading losses, and market disruptions haven’t been serious, Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan said today. Trading didn’t freeze and markets behaved “reasonably well” given the circumstances after Dimon disclosed at least $2 billion in trading losses at JPMorgan’s chief investment office, Moynihan said today at a Manhattan investor conference. Dimon has shown he’s got the skills to handle the affair, said Moynihan, whose Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank ranks second by assets behind New York-based JPMorgan. [Bloomberg]