4 smart takes on Jamie Dimon's massive raise

After a year of lawsuits, fines, and government probes, JPMorgan is giving its CEO an enormous pay hike

Dimon
(Image credit: (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images))

"This says everything" about Wall Street's priorities, said Linette Lopez at Business Insider. After "a tumultuous year of embarrassing lawsuits," fines, and government probes, JPMorgan is giving CEO Jamie Dimon a massive raise to $20 million for 2013. Never mind the more than $20 billion in settlements the bank paid out last year, related to mortgage fraud, Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, market manipulation, and other scandals. The JPMorgan board slashed Dimon's 2012 pay — to $11.5 million — when a London trader "blew a $6.2 billion hole in the bank's balance sheet by trading JPM's extra cash." Then, the board's message seemed clear: "Mess with the bank's money, you're toast." Its departure from that line now "sends a worrying message about what really matters to Wall Street." Here's a hint: It's not the customers.

Dimon deserves every penny, said Francesco Guerrera at The Wall Street Journal. "Once the litigation costs are stripped out," JPMorgan fared pretty well in 2013. The bank insists that it inherited many of its troubles when it purchased Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns — at the government's urging. That doesn't let Dimon off the hook, of course: "Notwithstanding government pressure," it was ultimately his call "to buy those companies, legal liabilities and all." Now Dimon will need to prove his worth anew, and shareholders and directors are expecting the bank to have "a much cleaner 2014, without outside noise overshadowing its results." It still has to convince investors that the board isn't, as one labor union representative put it, "prisoner to the cult of Jamie."

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Sergio Hernandez is business editor of The Week's print edition. He has previously worked for The DailyProPublica, the Village Voice, and Gawker.