BY JOHN KENNEYNOVEMBER 11, 2013
A tentative $13 billion settlement between JPMorgan and the Justice Department was a result of extensive personal outreach from Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, to the Justice Department.
—NYTimes.com.
Jamie Dimon: Is Eric there, please?
Receptionist: May I ask who’s calling?
Dimon: Jamie Dimon.
Receptionist: Did you say, “Jamie”?
Dimon: Yes.
Receptionist: I’m sorry, isn’t that a girl’s name?
Dimon: It can be a boy’s name, too. Is he there, please?
Receptionist: Please hold.
(A beat as Dimon is placed on hold. Music is heard—the Clash’s rendition of “I Fought the Law.” After a minute or so . . .)
Attorney General Eric Holder: This is Eric.
Dimon: Eric, it’s Jamie Dimon.
Holder: Jamie. Hey. That’s weird. My assistant said there was a girl named Jamie on the phone.
Dimon: There are a lot of guys who are named Jamie, O.K.?
Holder: Jamie Farr, from “m*a*s*h.”
Dimon: Exactly.
Holder: His character dressed like a woman, though, right?
Dimon: So listen. I think we should meet.
Holder: What, like, for dinner?
Dimon: No. For a business meeting.
Holder: Oh.
Dimon: Why? Would you ever want to have dinner?
Holder: It doesn’t have to be dinner. A walk would be nice. Maybe a coffee?
Dimon: Both sound great. Let me tell you the reason I’m calling. A few of the guys over here—the board, for example—we’re a little concerned about some . . . money stuff. Like, that maybe you guys are still thinking of, uh, bringing charges against us.
Holder: Yeah, we’re definitely planning on doing that.
Dimon: Huh. And this is something you feel strongly about?
Holder: Pretty strongly, yeah.
Dimon: I see. And you have, like, evidence and stuff?
Holder: I can’t really talk about that, but yeah . . . like, boatloads.
Dimon: Can I ask you a question?
Holder: Jamie, you know I can’t comment on anything.
Dimon: One question.
Holder: I’m listening.
Dimon: Have you ever seen “The Lion King”?
Holder: O.K., I can’t believe you’re asking me that, because I have and I loved it. And, honestly, I don’t like musical theatre as a rule.
Dimon: Right? Blew me away. When they shake that piece of fabric to make it look like it’s a river?
Holder: Julie Taymor.
Dimon: Julie Taymor.
Holder: Anyway.
Dimon: So you’re definitely suing us?
Holder: Can’t really talk about it.
Dimon: How do you like being a lawyer?
Holder: I like it. But I can’t say I love it. You know?
Dimon: Totally.
Holder: Law school was a fallback. I had no idea what I wanted to do.
Dimon: Same. No sane person becomes a banker.
Holder: Is there a lot of math in your job?
Dimon: So much. And I’m terrible at math.
Holder: I know.
Dimon: Funny. What do you call twenty-five attorneys buried up to their chins in cement?
Holder: Here it comes . . .
Holder: You guys paid back all the money we loaned you, right?Dimon: Not enough cement.
(Both laugh really hard.)
Dimon: Sure did. So listen to this. My kid brings me over to Williamsburg the other day. Have you been there?
Holder: Colonial Williamsburg? Sure. I love it. They churn their own butter.
Dimon: No, no. This is a neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Holder: Oh. No. Never heard of it.
Dimon: Listen to this. Like, every guy has a beard.
Holder: I don’t understand.
Dimon: Almost every man I saw—twenty-two to maybe forty—had a big beard, like they live in the woods or something, and I don’t know why.
Holder: Bizarre. Blankfein grew a beard. What’s up with that?
Dimon: No idea. I saw him recently. Asked him about it. He said it was symbolic, that each whisker on his face—he said he’d had a team of first-year derivatives guys count them—each whisker represented something important in his life. One might be passion, one might be love, one might be a child. He pointed to four that represented helicopters. But the bulk of his face, he said, was money. He said his entire chin was Palm Beach real estate.
Holder: Had he been drinking?
Dimon: That’s the weird thing. I don’t think so.
Holder: Lloyd.
Dimon: I feel like I understand less as I get older.
Holder: Same.
Dimon: Do you ever . . .
Holder: What?
Dimon: Do you ever . . . do you ever look out the window in the late afternoon and just get . . . sad? Like, for no reason?
Holder: Almost every day.
Dimon: I’ll walk around the office some days and just see people crying at their desks for no outward reason.
Holder: Same here.
Dimon: Total change of subject, but would you ever want to go camping?
Holder: That was weird, because you read my mind. I have a two-man tent and, like, fourteen canteens.
(Both laugh for a long time.)
Dimon: Now, in terms of a fine . . .
Holder: Yeah.
Dimon: I was talking with some of the guys here and we were thinking, like, a billion maybe would be good.
Holder: Huh.
Dimon: Were you thinking that would be a good number?
Holder: No-o-o.
Dimon: Oh. What were you thinking, hypothetically?
Holder: Hypothetically? Not less than thirteen.
Dimon: Thirteen. Wow. And that . . . that would be as in billion?
Holder: Yes, definitely billion.
Dimon: Of course. Because thirteen million . . . I mean, my pants are worth more than that . . . ha ha . . . I’m kidding, they’re not, they’re just regular pants. I just think the word “pants” is . . . Anyway. Wow. So thirteen billion.
Holder: Yeah.
(A long beat.)
Dimon: So you feel like we were . . . were bad, the guys and me, at the bank here.
Holder: Pretty much, yeah.
Dimon: Huh. That’s so weird, because we weren’t thinking that at all. We were thinking, you know, we made a lot of money and that that was, like, good.
Holder: Interesting. I guess for me it’s how you made the money?
Dimon: Not sure I understand. Why would that matter?
Holder: Well, over here it’s kind of the . . . what’s the word . . . the essence of the whole thing.
Dimon: Like . . . rules and stuff.
Holder: Exactly.
Dimon: Like that . . . what do you call it . . . Vulcan Law?
Holder: Volcker Rule.
Dimon: Yeah, that one. That’s funny, because we didn’t really take that one very seriously. We actually have a copy of it up on a wall and people kind of point at it and laugh, because, I mean, it’s just funny.
Holder: I think that’s where we differ a bit.
Dimon: Interesting. O.K., then. Well . . . I should probably talk with some of the guys.
Holder: Talk with the guys.
Dimon: Camping soon?
Holder: Can’t wait. Talk soon, Jamie. ♦
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2013/11/11/131111sh_shouts_kenney?currentPage=all
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