Bank CEO thinks journalist salaries are 'outrageous'

Not sure what you mean by "private," so I can't really answer your question.

But I'm sure he'd say that like any company, publicly-traded or privately owned, the salaries of employees should be a matter worked out between the owners of the company and their employees. Not something regulated by populist opinion and government officials.

 

Just because a company is publicly traded doesn't somehow give a claim to anyone who decides the people working for the company are overpaid or that their compensation levels are unfair.

If you work for Gannett, for example, your salary is none of my business, even if I want to stick my nose into the matter. The fact that Gannett is publicly-traded has no bearing on that fact.

 

Az,

1) I doubt too many JP Morgan shareholders are complaining. The stock has performed pretty well, at least for the last 12 months, and compensation policy at banks, at least now, is that bonuses are tied to profits. Plus, you saw in a room full of investors what kind of reaction his comments got. Not the outrage you get on a board filled with journalists. It got laughter.

2) I posted to try to give perspective about where Dimon is coming from. I feel I have something to offer, because I have done work for one of his competitors with regard to their compensation policy. I see just how much scrutiny they incur and how many hoops regulators (not just the U.S., but in every country they do business in) make them jump through. I have seen first hand just how sensitive the topic is for them, and I have seen just how unfairly demonized they feel.

I never posted that newspapers (or Occupy protestors, or whoever) shouldn't have the right to turn bank salaries into whatever populist rhetoric they want. I was posting about how Dimon likely feels about it. By the same token, from where he sits, if bonuses his company pays are fair fodder and he is getting handed newspaper clips every day demonizing his company over the issue, why shouldn't it then be fair game for him to say, "You know what all you reporters taking shots at us. Let's turn the microscope on you and look at your salaries relative to the profits your work generates? At least we earn our money."

From a PR perspective? Yeah, it got laughter from a room full of his investors, but as I said in multiple posts, it is a game he isn't going to win. Like it or not, banks are generally seen as evil and plutocratic and a cause of everyone's misery. The usual response to something like this is, "We bailed them out!" which was why I posted pointing out that JP Morgan didn't need a bailout, it was forced to take it. So he loses either way. If he stays silent, he gets ripped every time bonus season comes around. When he takes a shot back -- at newspapers, which he believes have treated the issue unfairly -- at least on a board like this (because I don't think the comments were otherwise widely noticed), it's a guy earning millions taking a shot at the poorly paid newspaper reporters and he's a douchebag.