Chase Execs

[snapple candy]

Hi all, thought you all might want to know what Chase is up to:

JPMorgan Chase To Spend Millions on New Jets and Luxury Airport Hangar

Outraged Critics Decry the Proposal, Call For Bank To Abandon Plans
By BRIAN ROSS, JOSEPH RHEE and MEGAN CHUCHMACH
March 23, 2009—


Embattled bank JPMorgan Chase, the recipient of $25 billion in TARP funds, is going ahead with a $138 million plan to buy two new luxury corporate jets and build "the premier corporate aircraft hangar on the eastern seaboard" to house them, ABC News has learned.

The financial giant's upgrade includes nearly $120 million for two Gulfstream 650 planes and $18 million for a lavish renovation of a hangar at the Westchester Airport outside New York City.

A public hearing will be held by Westchester County officials tonight regarding JPMorgan's request for new hangar space.

According to JPMorgan Chase architects, the new hangar will be built with reclaimed wood, quarry tile and even a "vegetated roof garden."

The Gulfstream 650's are described by the manufacturer as the "fastest," "widest" and "most comfortable" private jet ever with superior cabin amenities, an optional stateroom, and 12 interior designs to choose from.

"It's a remarkably boneheaded decision," said corporate watchdog Nell Minow, the editor and founder of The Corporate Library, a group that provides independent corporate governance research and analysis. "It's completely tone deaf."

Mike Dolphin, president of fixed-based operator Avitat Westchester, is fighting the bank's grand plans because he says JPMorgan's proposed expansion would force his company out of the hangar the bank is eyeing. Westchester County, NY has recommended that the bank, a "high quality corporate citizen" be awarded the lease to the hangar when it becomes available in April 2010, in part, because of how much money it is dedicating for the "construction of a state of the art "green building.""

"I am the little guy, so we have a bit of a David versus Goliath fight on our hands," Dolphin told ABC News. He said JPMorgan Chase's plans come at the "wrong place, wrong time" and that despite scaled back private aviation from other TARP-funded companies, JPMorgan Chase is going ahead with its plans, which, if finalized by the county, will cut his business and his staff in half.

"You wouldn't find another hangar in the airport that has anything near this," Dolphin said of the bank's proposal.

[martialgir]

If you REALLY want to pull your hair out and scream, you need to read the article that is coming out in next months "Rolling Stone" called, "How Wall Street Insiders Are Using Bailout To Stage A Revolution."

The article is posted on yesterdays (3/23/2009) Huffpost written by Matt Taibbi. I have never read a better indictment about how and why this crisis started and it is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism. If you go to search on the Huffpost front page and put in the writer and part of the title, you'll find it.

I would cut and paste it but there is some "saucy" language in the article and I'm not sure if that is prohibited anyway. We don't want to get Moe in trouble!

[Irish Gal]

I read it yesterday. Great, great article that explains the history of this mess and the dirty players in a way the average person can understand. I enjoy and agree with Taibbi's perspective. He's deliciously smart but sarcastically cynical, which I personally appreciate. But he's not for the faint of heart, those "glass is half full" types or those prone to Pollyanna-ism

[chefette]

I read the article this morning. "Oh what a tangled web we weave......" Thougt his angle was a bit one sided, but I'll forgo that to say, what the hell do WE do about it now????