Something that I fear Catholics may be right about, is the human need for a formal aristocracy. It’s a stupid idea, (in)breeding a class of humans whose only and guaranteed-for-life job is exercising power without responsibility. Less the occasional assassination and mob of pitchforks, of course, but they’ve never been enough to prevent Habsburgs from happening. The idea has been tried since the beginning of time, yet history’s win/loss record for aristocracy is worse than even the Arizona Cardinals. God Himself couldn’t make an aristocracy that could be trusted, neither human nor angelic.
Despite those undeniable drawbacks, the oh-so-highly evolved human animal remains stubbornly dependent upon “monkey see, monkey do”. Blah blah history, theology and common sense, no, people are gonna imitate whatever poo-fling chimp chump they see holding the most bananas. Or behaving the most bananas. Clown World either way.
One argument in favor of aristocracy, is that aristocrats usually get taught that people will imitate whatever they see him getting away with, so he shouldn’t do any evil that can be turned back on him. Thus, evil aristocrats had to tread more carefully than this:
Jamie Dimon says business school grads taking a private equity job while already working at JPMorgan is ‘unethical’
h ttps://finance.yahoo.com/news/jamie-dimon-says-business-school-093000096.html
By Sydney Lake for Fortune Magazine, 25 September 2024
It’s not uncommon for big-name business leaders to get poached by major corporations. Take the recent example of Brian Niccol, the former CEO of Chipotle who got poached by Starbucks last month.
But these behaviors have started with the earliest-career professionals—and Jamie Dimon doesn’t like it. Dimon, the illustrious CEO of JPMorgan Chase, spoke of his disdain for private equity’s poaching practices during a talk last week at Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy.
It’s not wrong when the big dogs do it? A real aristocrat would understand “monkey see, monkey do” and be careful to occasionally do something that isn’t… gloating Jewish usury. Like having friends, maybe.
Aristocracy is a terrible idea. Central banking is worse.
“I know a lot of you work at JPMorgan, you take a job at a private equity shop before you even start with us,” Dimon told a crowd of undergraduate business school students. “I'm going to say something a little different, okay, because I didn't talk about character. The most important thing about people's character, I think that's unethical. I don't like it.”
Dimon is referring to the wonky practice in which private equity firms begin aggressively recruiting newly minted junior bankers right at the beginning of their career—and even sometimes before. But the peculiarity of private equity’s recruiting practices is that the jobs they’re wooing recent college grads with often don’t start until a date far into the future, usually around two years.
The behavior makes sense if you consider that the banking industry has consolidated into a few gatekeeping superbanks whose continuing success depends exclusively on insider networking & special relationships with the ((Federal Reserve)). The banks outside that Palace Economy… the “private equity companies” apparently not invited to Georgetown University… have no chance of survival unless their employees can somehow cultivate their own insider networks.
That’s hard to do from the outside.
Thus, they sign up the employees newly hired by BigCorp, like a sportsball recruiter looking at high school talent. Employees agree to it because (I presume) they can draw two paychecks for a couple years, pay down those student loans, then when the time comes, they can play two eager employers off each other to negotiate a good deal.
You built that system, Mr. Dimon. You pioneered it:
Segue
h ttps://heavy.com/news/2020/03/judith-kent-jamie-dimon-wife/
Judith Kent and Jamie Dimon moved to New York City after graduating from Harvard and got married in May 1983 and. They both went to work at American Express.
Kent was a management trainee while Dimon served as an assistant to the chairman of the executive committee.
Straight to the top of the financial world, straight out of college. How connectedly Jewish. Two years later, per Wikipedia, “After an attempt to become the CEO of BankAmerica Corp., he persuaded Minneapolis-based Control Data Corporation to spin off a troubled subsidiary…” All insider connections, no experience required.
Repeat, TWO YEARS LATER. Exactly what he’s complaining about kids doing now.
On their first date, Kent ended up footing the bill because Dimon did not have any money on him at the time, according to Money Inc.
Lookit that, a mercenary attitude.
End segue
"We understand that the practice of interviewing and accepting a role at another firm has accelerated and is happening even earlier in your career with us," JPMorgan wrote to new bankers in a communication that was shared by the Litquidity account on Instagram, according to Business Insider. The post is no longer visible.
Dimon doesn’t like it because many of these junior bankers who are getting poached have already gone through some job training and have had access to confidential information right before taking the leap into private equity.
“It puts us in a bad position, and it puts us in a conflicted position,” Dimon said. “You are already working for somewhere else, and you're dealing with highly confidential information from JPMorgan, and I just don't like it.”
It’s not confidential information they’ll be taking away. It’s confidential access.
Plus, Dimon says it’s an unfair position for new college graduates who have to undergo rigorous interviewing rounds and complete projects for jobs that won’t start for years.
“It puts the kid in a terrible position,” Dimon said. “I think that's wrong.”
Is that why Dimon made JewPMorganChaseBankMergerFedCorp, and Citigroup before that, industry models of lifetime employment and living wages for Heritage Americans? Because he thinks it’s wrong to make college graduates constantly job-hop? Our only clue is Dimon complaining “my employees want to quit before they even start!”
But Reena Aggarwal, the founding director of the Psaros Center and Dimon’s interviewer, pointed out that banks are also starting to interview undergrad students much earlier on. The banks used to hire students for internships after their junior year, but it just keeps moving earlier and earlier, she said, even before they declare a major.
Well, sure. Free labor. It’s legal because interns get paid in false hope.
Those students of finance would be better off interning in a street gang. Crime pays, promotion is swift, the networking and mentoring are free, and you can triple-dip after graduation, with a paycheck from BigCorp, a retainer from littleCorp and an FBI informant’s per-diem. Some prisons such as California’s infamous San Quentin, even have on-campus accredited universities now, so incarceration won’t even delay your graduation.
Bonus if the Los Zetas Cartel murders you in a turf war. You’ll die with your soul still intact. Few bankers are that lucky!
“You’re right. You know what? You guys should get together some schools and some of the banks…and we come up with policies,” Dimon said. “We have to put procedures in place to stop that from happening.
It’s “industry best practices” to limit your employees’ alternatives to you!
But at the end of the day, Dimon still puts the onus of choice on the young professionals themselves to make the right decision.
“You're going to be facing ethical decisions like that. Think for yourself,” Dimon said. “How would you feel if you're on the other side of that thing? Or do you want to be treated that way? Is it fair?”
Yeah, Dimon. Think for yourself. Why are the new kids behaving like conscienceless mercenaries towards you, with both eyes on the closest exit and sticky fingers on anything of value? Why is your company nothing to them but a stepping stone on their personal roads to glory? Who taught them to do that?
I can show Dimon the answer in this article by Fortune Magazine, because mirrors won’t reflect his image.
Well naturally occurring elites are inevitable in every society. Noblesse oblige was still a real thing, I think it played a part in why the UK didn’t go violent leftist for most of its history. The landlords weren’t absentee in the 18th century in England like they were in France (it’s easier to rationalize killing some faceless aristocrat than it is Lord George who sits in the same church with you every Sunday). Also during the first and Second World War, Englands elite famously went into combat arms. It’s harder to grouse about “rich men’s wars”, when Lord George great grandson is right next to you in a trench (I’ve seen the memorial Great War wall at Eton, a lot of rich kids met their end).
Of course the big obvious element in the room is pervasive Christianity. Even if the people involved aren’t personally Christian they seem to imbibe a lot of the values when they it’s just the water they’ve swam in their whole lives.
This, if I'm remembering right, was Zippy's argument for monarchism back in the day. I don't like Papism in general, but I do agree on that point, and my reasoning is thus: Much like guns, there will always be entrenched elites. When you criminalize being an entrenched elite, only the honest ones will refrain from using that power — the crooks will still do their thing, they'll just hide in the floorboards and have the sorcerers poison you to death instead of sending the brute squad to your door.