Reports Thursday floated Jamie Dimon’s name as a potential Secretary of the Treasury under President-elect Donald J. Trump, but the JPMorgan CEO and his Wall Street peers are already seeing a big post-election boost. FORBES calculates that the rally in bank stocks since Election Day has increased the value of stock and options held by six big bank CEOs by a collective $159 million. [...]
Trump outreach to Dimon for Treasury job may fall on deaf ears
By Dan Freed and David Henry
JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon did not support Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign, yet some Trump advisers want America's most famous banker to become Treasury Secretary to calm nerves on Wall Street.
A member of Trump's transition team contacted Dimon recently to see if he would be interested in the role, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
It was not clear whether Dimon had responded, though he has said emphatically multiple times that he was not interested in the role. JPMorgan spokesman Andrew Gray declined to comment, and Dimon, who is traveling outside the United States, could not be reached.
Trump's close circle of advisers includes several with Wall Street ties. His campaign finance manager, Steven Mnuchin, is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker. Fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci is a hedge fund executive.
A person familiar with Trump's personnel efforts said the transition team's list included Dimon, Mnuchin and Rep. Jeb Hensarling. The person said that Mnuchin was a more likely choice given his proximity to Trump.
Trump's controversial rhetoric and behavior during the campaign concerning immigrants, women, minorities, the disabled, Muslims and China, among other things, were offensive to many senior Wall Street executives who have tried to embrace inclusion, diversity and globalization.
Trump also criticized Wall Street on the trail, saying the industry "got away with murder" and would not be let off the hook.
Since being elected on Tuesday, Trump has softened his tone and tried to bridge gaps by meeting with President Obama and taking calls from foreign officials. Bringing Dimon on board could help him mend fences with the financial industry, which appears to be coming around to the idea of Trump in the White House.
At an event on Thursday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc CEO Lloyd Blankfein said Trump could be good for the economy and Dimon would be an excellent choice for Treasury Secretary, while hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said Trump's advisers would get "the best and brightest" to run the economy.
Hensarling's office indicated in a statement that he did not want the job.
“Serving in his Cabinet is not something I’ve indicated an interest in and it’s not something I am pursuing," the statement said. He said he looked forward to working in Congress to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act which tightened regulations on Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis.
Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, has been floated as a possible candidate for roles like Treasury Secretary in the past. However, resentment toward bankers following the 2007-2009 financial crisis made his candidacy much less likely, as did JPMorgan-specific scandals related to a costly derivatives trade and bad mortgages.
A $13 billion mortgage settlement JPMorgan reached with the federal government in 2013 prompted Trump then to call Dimon "the worst banker in the United States."
However, Dimon has managed to retain a reputation within the banking industry as a distinguished leader, in part by the way he handled those scandals and the way he talks about JPMorgan's role in society as the largest U.S. bank.
For instance, Dimon decided to have JPMorgan make big investments in Detroit, calling it a civic duty to turn around an economically challenged city. His memos, speeches and letters to shareholders are often sprinkled with patriotic language.
"America is best when we come together with clear leadership, expertise and the political will to take on difficult challenges and get things done," the 60-year-old chairman and CEO said in a memo to JPMorgan Chase employees following Tuesday's election. "No one should ever doubt the strength and resilience of our country and our democracy."
However, Dimon has said as recently as September that he would not want a role as Treasury Secretary. If he holds to that, it could put him and JPMorgan in an awkward position.
Saying "no" to a presidential request to join the cabinet is unusual, and the bank would then be overseen by appointees from an administration Dimon rejected.
Even so, his associates do not expect Dimon to say "yes."
Dimon has said his determination to act would make it hard to make political compromises. Talking before an audience in September, he said the only job in government he would want is the one Trump is about to get.
"I would love to be president of the United States of America," Dimon told the Economic Club of Washington. "Until Donald Trump got to where he was, they said you'll never see a rich businessman who's never been in politics be president. I clearly was wrong about that."
Like the corrupt Freddy Dismay democrats who pushed the subprime scam... banksters involved/conspired in this same scam need to be 24/7 monitored. Especially CEOs whose life mission seems to be to profit/siphon millions of $ from mere hysteric DOW fluctuations and opaque schemes and products that are set up with no other goal but to cash in profits and socialize losses. But yes.. lets see.Mr. Perfect wrote:No. You should know by now P they are lying to you. Don't even get involved in this until after the first month.
). An aristocratic power couple if ever there was one. Both sides of the family have made their fortunes on Wall Street, where Rebekah's husband is at the high-momentum phase of his career as global head of exotics at Morgan Stanley. I think he's a nice guy, very globally-minded, but his objectives and world view are definitely not in sync with the Trumpalachians. Zack Morris wrote:I think the biggest liar in this whole affair has been Donald Trump. Not a grain of truth. He is an intellectual zero, a nobody, the Great White Hope that a minority of the country have projected their deranged fantasies on.
Get your monitor adjusted properly, The dude is ORANGE!I don't know how to break it to you guys but he didn't run against wall street bankers. He took less money from corporate donors than anyone in a generation, by choice.Zack Morris wrote:Of course he has.
Wall Street bankers, whose bonuses are largely paid in equity these days, got an instant net worth infusion after the Trump election. I was amused that Rebekah Mercer served as his campaign's finance director and is now a part of his transition team. I've never met her but I am actually acquainted with her husband (which I guess puts me at two degrees of separation from Donald Trump himself
Although I genuinely fear for the enormous damage that Trump's Legion of Doom will do (especially in areas of vital importance like net neutrality), it's not going to hit my wallet (at least not in the short term) and I'll be able to console myself by watching Trump supporters getting screwed big league. The screwing will be epic.
Wealth is not a proxy for intellect or competence. That's where you Mammon worshipers on the right wing went astray.Mr. Perfect wrote:Lol hes worth billions of dollars and can buy and sell you millions of times over.Zack Morris wrote:I think the biggest liar in this whole affair has been Donald Trump. Not a grain of truth. He is an intellectual zero, a nobody, the Great White Hope that a minority of the country have projected their deranged fantasies on.
Yeah, right. Trumpalachians continually linked Clinton to Wall Street, implying it was bad for the country. Well, now Wall Street is firmly in control of the Trump administration.Mr. Perfect wrote:I don't know how to break it to you guys but he didn't run against wall street bankers. He took less money from corporate donors than anyone in a generation, by choice.Zack Morris wrote:Of course he has.
Wall Street bankers, whose bonuses are largely paid in equity these days, got an instant net worth infusion after the Trump election. I was amused that Rebekah Mercer served as his campaign's finance director and is now a part of his transition team. I've never met her but I am actually acquainted with her husband (which I guess puts me at two degrees of separation from Donald Trump himself
Although I genuinely fear for the enormous damage that Trump's Legion of Doom will do (especially in areas of vital importance like net neutrality), it's not going to hit my wallet (at least not in the short term) and I'll be able to console myself by watching Trump supporters getting screwed big league. The screwing will be epic.
Lol no, Trumps complaint is the donation aspect not the existence of bank. The Bernie bros want banks broken up and nationalised, Trump just objects to the payoffs. He doesn't object to the existence of banks.Zack Morris wrote:Yeah, right. Trumpalachians continually linked Clinton to Wall Street, implying it was bad for the country. Well, now Wall Street is firmly in control of the Trump administration.Mr. Perfect wrote:I don't know how to break it to you guys but he didn't run against wall street bankers. He took less money from corporate donors than anyone in a generation, by choice.Zack Morris wrote:Of course he has.
Wall Street bankers, whose bonuses are largely paid in equity these days, got an instant net worth infusion after the Trump election. I was amused that Rebekah Mercer served as his campaign's finance director and is now a part of his transition team. I've never met her but I am actually acquainted with her husband (which I guess puts me at two degrees of separation from Donald Trump himself
Although I genuinely fear for the enormous damage that Trump's Legion of Doom will do (especially in areas of vital importance like net neutrality), it's not going to hit my wallet (at least not in the short term) and I'll be able to console myself by watching Trump supporters getting screwed big league. The screwing will be epic.
Lol that's not what you were saying a week ago. You were saying you would win the upper incomes and college educated but you didn't. You lost by your own standards which is the worst possible way to lose.Zack Morris wrote:Wealth is not a proxy for intellect or competence. That's where you Mammon worshipers on the right wing went astray.Mr. Perfect wrote:Lol hes worth billions of dollars and can buy and sell you millions of times over.Zack Morris wrote:I think the biggest liar in this whole affair has been Donald Trump. Not a grain of truth. He is an intellectual zero, a nobody, the Great White Hope that a minority of the country have projected their deranged fantasies on.
