A really great comedic act is not something you find every day. Your Laurel and Hardy, your Abbot and Costello, these are magical pairings. The secret to the comedy is having the right straight man.
Now recently my friends and I were rolling in the aisles watching Jami Dimon testify in front of the US Senate. Jamie had us howling…but it would not have been as funny had it not been for the straight men like Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee.
Jamie got a little jammed up when someone reported that one of his traders, the London whale, had apparently lost a bit of money, a couple billion—nothing huge—in a manner technically he really wasn’t allowed to do.
How this is actually Jamie’s fault? I don’t know.
But the Senate wanted to talk to him and thought they’d call him on the carpet. The red carpet. And that is where our fun begins.
Looking at that panel it’s hard to choose who was the best straight man that day, and then along came the Senator from Tennessee.
Bob Corker. Republican.
He served up such gems as “Mr. Dimon could you expound on the societal good of your bank?”
“Mr. Dimon, what can we do to make the system safer for you and JP Morgan?
“Mr. Dimon you are renowned, and rightly so, for being one of the best CEOs in the country.”
But the best line came from Jamie Dimon. When he said that gamblers are losers and that he is not a gambler. And he is right— you aren’t a gambler when you pay all those straight men on the Senate committee to give you an unlimited line of credit from the tax payer.
And after that hearing was over the 2 billion loss was really a 7 billion dollar loss.
But when it comes to the Wall Street Washington comedy set, the joke is always on the tax payer.
