Is This “The Guy?”

For months now, (since at least September of last year) I’ve been making the case that if there’s indeed a mastermind behind a scheme to get Barack Obama into the Oval Office in order to advance a corporate, Wall Street-friendly agenda, it’s none of the usual suspects whose names are always thrown into the mix whenever these things are discussed, like Henry Paulson, but this guy, JP Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon.  A profile of the bankster in today’s New York Times, while inaccurate on a few points, imo, does nothing to disabuse anyone of conviction resultant from such speculation.  In fact, the piece, in detailing the New York Federal Reserve Board of Directors‘ member, who was selected along with Pepsico’s Indra Nooyi, another Obama campaign economic advisor, and his cozy relationship with the White House, especially with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, could be seen as express validation of such a claim.

Thanks primarily to Matt Taibbi and his recent Rolling Stone article about Goldman Sachs, The Great American Bubble Machine, especially in light of the company’s latest profit report, Hank Paulson’s name has been prominent in the news.  Everybody from Paul Krugman to Seeking Alpha to Congress has weighed in on the meaning, effect, genesis and reality of said profits in light of their new status as a bank holding company, the company’s bailout, and their relationship of the architect of the TARP program that provided it, Paulson.

However, the fact that JP Morgan has also benefited every step of the bailout/extortion way is inescapable, while the reality of Jamie Dimon’s relationship with Obama usually flies under the radar.  As does the fact that where Obama, Dimon and Paulson are concerned, all roads lead to Chicago.

We all know that Paulson is from Barrington, Illinois and served as Goldman’s Midwestern Investment Division chief in Chicago before becoming the company’s CEO.  A Republican, who once served as an intern to Richard Nixon, Paulson has nonetheless been accused by fellow Chicagoan, Robert Novak and Nina Easton of being a Republican in Name Only (RINO) whose appointments were to serve as groundwork for his wife’s college friend, Hillary Clinton’s cabinet, despite the fact that Paulson’s political donations were primarily in support of his party.   However, if Paulson was trying to pave the way for anybody, it was Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton.

Paulson’s likely partner in crime, Dimon, also posted recent big gains for his company, JP Morgan.  It is said that the two firms are the big winners in terms of the whole bailout.  And, like Paulson, Dimon has a Chicago connection during the time Barack Obama was there.  In 2000, while Obama was busily en route to having his head handed to him by Bobby Rush in his bid for Rush’s Congressional seat, Dimon landed in town after being sacked by his mentor, Citigroup’s Sandy Weill, two years earlier.  After a nearly two-year wound-licking pity party, Dimon who once interned at Goldman, himself, took over Chicago’s Bank One, turned it around, and parlayed it into his position as JP Morgan CEO, taking Bill Clinton’s former Commerce Secretary, Bill Daley, the brother of the city’s mayor, Richard, along with him.  Paulson also remained loyal to his Midwestern roots, installing former Goldman boardmate, Allstate’s Ed Liddy as CEO of AIG when he bailed them out.

According to today’s New York Times article, the fiery Dimon’s relationship with Rahm Emanuel is close, going back to Rahm’s days in the Clinton White House, and Dimon’s at Citigroup, while he supposedly didn’t know Obama well, only meeting him in 2004 in relation to the Pretendident’s Senate run.  Yet, Obama, while not putting their relationship in any chronological context, said last July that he knew Dimon “quite well.”  Answering a question about CEO’s he admired, like Warren Buffet, and whether he could get them on the phone at will, Obama had this to say:

I call him, yes. He’s one of the most refreshing people. He’s one of those rare people who is exactly how you hope he will be. He’s just completely down to earth and is as smart as they come. Really a wise, wise person. I got to know Jamie Dimon quite well when he was in Chicago. I think he’s a very smart person, and I think he’s doing his best to manage his bank under difficult circumstances. (emphasis mine)

As president, Obama has also made off the cuff remarks alluding to his relationship with Dimon, telling Citigroup’s current CEO, Dick Parsons, at the Business Roundtable, that he would “talk to Jamie” about core banking principles.  This is the infamous meeting where the previously gloomy economic prognosticator suddenly became optimistic.  At any rate, I have been chronicling the Dimon/Obama/Paulson relationship and its possible origin and ramifications  forever, so, it’s nice to see the media starting to play catch up.  Maybe sometime in the near future they can start to ask some of the other questions that a quick trip through my archives will show that I’ve explored, especially in relation to the Wall Street Whisper Campaign that lead to the Lehman Brothers collapse, linked to at the top of this page, as well as the subsequent fallout, including the CEO salary cap smoke ‘n’ mirrors illusion/delusion, also linked above.

Seems more than a little funny to me that two of Obama’s biggest campaign contributors keep coming out smelling like roses in this curiously? possibly? engineered economic collapse, and, that people close to him are such major players in the game.  Once again citing Chicago Tribune’s John Kass and his characterization of Illinois politics as a bi-partisan “Combine,” the possibility that all roads indeed lead back to Chicago through Jamie Dimon doesn’t seem far-fetched at all, especially considering his considerable axe to grind against Citigroup.  Add Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat, (TTTG,tc) who, like Paulson, was once a Republican, with his daddy/Obama mama connection, plus his New York Fed relationship to Dimon to the mix, and a vedddy in-ter-est-ink series of coinky-dinks emerges.

Proof?

No.

Something to think about?

Hell yeah.