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Mark Gongloff, who writes about the financial markets for Huffington Post, caught this whiny exchange between poor oppressed Jamie Dimon and hard-hitting, ass-kissing talking head Maria Bartiromo on CNBC. It's even more bewildering when you think how frequently the Obama administration has bent over for the bankers, but for some people, nothing is enough:
Dimon on Friday afternoon did his whining on CNBC, which has become a sort of Dr. Phil for aggrieved CEOs in the wake of the national catastrophe that is Obama's reelection, according to CNBC. Dimon played some slow-pitch softball with America's greatest journalist, Maria Bartiromo, who threw several fat pitches down the pike.
But the juiciest of all was when she asked him, for journalism, why Obama has such an "antagonistic relationship with business" and when we can expect our civilization to collapse because of it. I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.
Dimon had, up to that point, been on his very best behavior in the interview, shrugging off her questions about bank regulations by saying JPMorgan would be just fine with any regulations, what are you gonna do, it is what it is.
But when he saw this one juicy pitch from Bartiromo, he could not resist. He reached deep into his temperature-controlled whine cellar and broke out one of his classic whines: A lovely bottle of "Nice Economy, Shame If Something Should Happen To It." In the spirit of post-election bipartisanship, he watered it down a little bit, but it was still classic Dimon.
"This is the greatest economic engine ever built," Dimon began, speaking of America, poor put-upon America, saddled with a president like Obama. "It's growing slowly, waiting to be ignited.
"I have tremendous respect for President Obama," he continued, in the manner of mob bosses throughout the tri-state area, who begin every disrespectful statement by saying "All due respect."
"I just think that business and government collaboration has a much better chance of igniting that engine than this antagonist behavior," he finished.The subtext, as always: Nice economy you've got there, shame if something should happen to it.
As always, it is hard to know exactly what sort of "antagonist behavior" Dimon and Bartiromo are whining about. True, there was that one time Obama referred to "fat cat" bankers, which still keeps bankers up at night sobbing tears into their pillows full of money.
