BloggeRhythms

With the electoral college drama behind us, Trump cabinet posts almost completed and the inauguration still a month away, not very much else is really new in the world today.

During the lull, an interview with Jamie Dimon CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by Megan Murphy appeared @bloomberg.com/news this morning. As head of the largest U.S. bank having assets of  $2.42 trillion, Dimon’s thoughts and analyses are well worth considering. And like most skilled and seasoned top rung business professionals, although surely an unparalleled top operative in his own business, much of his functional practices are based on pure and simple common sense.  

The interview predicated on JP Morgan Chase having  made a five-year commitment to invest $100 million in Detroit, where the bank has a major presence. With two and a half years into the project, Dimon claims it’s working, “because Mayor Mike Duggan—and Rick Snyder, the governor, too, by the way, one a Democrat, one a Republican—were saying, “Let’s go work to make this work for society.” And we were all in it. We didn’t just come here to throw money at it, which is easy to do and can often be wasteful.” 

From there, Dimon explained how the overall problems were analyzed, prioritized and pursued in specific order to restore the city’s economy and overall stature. 

Farther along in the article, Dimon was asked: “As recently as September, you thought it would be difficult for people on Wall Street to get into the new administration. Now, Donald Trump has tapped several Wall Street figures. What do you think they’re going to bring that’s different?

Dimon answered: “Obviously, I was dead wrong about that. But you had a complete upheaval. The Republicans are in charge, and they have not been anti-business the way you’ve seen the Democrats largely be anti-business for years. I think if you are going to be president, you should have the best people sitting around a table. I think it’s a mistake for the American public to constantly be told that if you work for an oil company or you work for a bank, that automatically makes you bad. I think a lot of these people are very qualified people who are patriots. They’re going to want to help the country. They’re not going to try to help their former company. These are people with deep knowledge that will hopefully do a great job.” 

And in that paragraph, Dimon aptly described the difference between simple pragmatism and politics. Because, since the nation’s primary problems revolve around economic opportunity, job development, increased GNP and rising personal/household income what’s needed is a focused businessperson surrounded by others having concomitant expertise. Versus a tired, worn thin, recycled, unaccomplished backbiting pure politician. 

Dimon then deflated another leftist objective by succinctly pointing out why socialism never works and cannot: “I think it’s a reset moment for how businesses are going to be treated: 145 million people work in America; 125 million of them work for private enterprise; 20 million work for government—firemen, sanitation, police, teachers. We hold them in very high regard. But you know, if you didn’t have the 125 you couldn’t pay for the other 20. Business is a huge positive element in society. But for years it’s been beaten down as if we’re terrible people. So I think it’s a good reset.” 

After employing simple logic to illustrate the irrefutable basic flaws in leftist theory, he took the same approach to point out the massive deterioration in the quality of education across the nation. Thereby condemning what the left has done to school systems while never mentioning those directly at fault. Yet every reader certainly knows who he’s referring to. Primarily teacher’s unions.      

Dimon said: “I think one of the greatest disgraces in this country is the fact that in a lot of inner-city schools, 50 percent of the kids don’t graduate high school. And even those kids who graduate are not necessarily job-ready. That’s a crime. That’s America at its absolute worst. We are allowing that to happen, and these kids don’t have the opportunity we all had at one point in life. We have to fix it. It’s not whether something’s free. It’s whether it ends up where you’re properly trained for a job.” 

Citing Germany, where two-thirds of the "kids" at 15 or 16 go to vocational school, Dimon highlighted vocational schools that work with local businesses so those kids get a certificate that leads to a job. 

He then went on to explain that: “In New York City there’s a school called Aviation High School. Kids travel from all over the city. They’re trained in how to maintain small aircraft, electronics, hydraulics, electrical systems. When they graduate, everyone gets a job—$60,000 a year. You can do that in robotics, coding, accounting, a lot of health-care fields. That’s what we should be doing. It doesn’t mean you can’t go to college. It just means that you get an education that leads to a job.” 

And in that manner throughout the article, Dimon demonstrated that businesses aren't really politicized at all. But in actuality they're simply endeavors to create, sell and deliver goods and services to fill individual and societal needs. 

Yet, somehow leftists find fault with that. To the extent that successful business types are considered distrustful, perhaps even criminal, because they seek to profit from their efforts. However, if education’s the example employed, what’s by now glaringly obvious is that “free” schools result in students receiving education worth precisely what was paid for it: Nothing. 

Bringing us back to Dimon’s words that encapsulate the socialism/capitalism argument perfectly once again: “But you know, if you didn’t have the 125 you couldn’t pay for the other 20“   

That's it for today folks. 

Adios