June 13, 2012

What Do Jamie Dimon’s Cufflinks Tell Us About the Financial-Industrial Complex?

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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified before Congress today about his bank’s gigantic trading losses a few weeks ago, and the gist of his testimony was — well, something or other. Basically, nobody laid a glove on him, and Republican senators in particular practically genuflected in his presence. No sir, nobody’s thinking about regulating you any more than you already are! Wouldn’t dream of it!

Or something like that. But the real news that has the chattering classes chattering was Dimon’s fashion accessorizing. It seems that he was wearing presidential cufflinks, and nobody thinks this was just an offhand decision as he dashed out of his mansion this morning. But the question is, what message was he trying to send? There are several possibilities:

  • Don’t fuck with me. The president has my back.
  • Give it up, GOP. I still support Obama no matter how much you suck up to me.
  • Hey Obama. See these? Don’t take them for granted.

But maybe he meant something else entirely. We need to engage in some Dimonology here. Help me out.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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