JP Morgan Spending Millions On Jets: Keep Blowing The Whistle On Bailout Waste

JPMorgan Chase, beneficiary of $25 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, plans to spend $138 million for swank corporate jets and a new hangar, ABC News reported this morning. Given last week's epic wave of popular rage over bonuses and perks for executives at taxpayer-supported AIG, JPMorgan's plane plan is a bit of a head-scratcher.

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."

We want readers to let us know if you've heard of any other such extravagant business decisions that may involve taxpayer money.

If you're aware of wasteful or unnecessary spending or instances that call into question the use of TARP funds, please let us know. Tell us what you see and know, what you are hearing in the office by emailing [e-mail]. Anonymity is, of course, guaranteed.

Your tips pay off. On Feb. 4, we asked HuffPost readers to send us tips if they knew of wasteful spending by banks that had benefited from taxpayer funds through the TARP program.

Our readers came up big, delivering audio of Morgan Stanley co-president James Gorman telling financial advisers on an internal conference call that "very generous" retention awards would paid to executives who stayed on through a merger with Citigroup's Smith Barney. Gorman explained that the award -- "Please do not call it a bonus" -- would be based on 2008 performance.

"I think I can hear you clapping from here in New York," Gorman joked during the call, after announcing that the payments would be linked to '08 performance. "You should be clapping because frankly that is a very generous and thoughtful decision that we have made. We spent a lot of time kicking this around. We could easily have done it from the point of closing, which is obviously going to be somewhere in the latter half of this year or around the middle of the year. But we just decided... that it was right thing to do, to give you that certainty that it would be based off '08. '09 is a very difficult year... So that degree of anxiety, which many, many of you have emailed me about... is now off the table."

The story created a stir and was subsequently reported in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and more -- and it wouldn't have come to light without the help of HuffPost readers. So please, keep the tips coming.

Comments

[Camel54]

10:12 AM on 03/24/2009

I am completely over all of these distractions about airplanes and bonuses. None of these things, as offensive as they are, have any bearing on economic recovery. As long as we continue to let ourselves be sidetracked by these non-stories, the story will go on forever. There will always be companies doing offensive things. There will always be rich people getting money they don't deserve. There will always be something to complain about. Maybe if we focused on the important things instead of constantly expressing outrage which amounts to nothing, we could rebuild our economy based on more sound regulation and move on. Here's an idea, how about stories about jobless Americans and companies who continue to needlessly cut jobs. Is that not outrageous enough?

[crazylikeafox]

01:21 AM on 03/24/2009

Chase is going to pay back the TARP money too so their rich can keep their bonuses.

Wamu was a gift to Chase from Paulson and Bernanke. They made billions on that deal.

[me again]

08:29 PM on 03/23/2009

Jamie Dimon has lost touch with the economic realities of today. As a shareholder of JP Morgan Chase, you can bet I will be at this board meeting leading for a vote of no confidence in Mr. Dimon.

[IhaveaDREAMwhitegirl]

12:18 AM on 03/24/2009

Good on you!

[TomHunter]

08:02 PM on 03/23/2009

Having worked in these types of companies, I can tell you the sort of person who is ruthless enough to rise in a corporation is enough of a psychopath to not get it when they are behaving in an evil way.

CEO Dimon of JP Morgan Chase just feels that he's better than all other humans. He feels that somehow he has paid his dues, fought his way to this top job at Chase and though the money that makes up his bank comes from you and me and everybody we live with, he feels that all of the alleged and illusory and fraudulent profit they declare, picking a number out of a hat, is the amount of gargantuan pay that they themselves get.

And why? Because they want to be high up in the boards of status they care about. CEO Dimon of Chase, he wants to be high up on the Forbe 400 list.. He's competing and so just this one life he wants to TAKE EVERYTHING.

We need to clamp down on any one who wants to take home a billion dollars. Unless you are Michaelangelo or Stephen King or Michael Jordan, an obviously recognizable individual performer, you have not earned these millions--you've stolen them.

Why did we not have in this country such outrageous pay packages, as we have had in the last generation? Because before 20 years ago, business was honest. Not anymore. Business is rotten in America. Wall Street employs thieves.

[Waltfl]

10:54 PM on 03/23/2009

We live the age of corporate greed and ninja-capitalism. It was mainly in the past 10 years that executive salaries have quadrupled, while worker's salaries were stagnant, at best. It was during Bush's reign when corporate arrogance, limitless greed, war profiteering, and outright theft became presentable.

What we experience now had parallels in the Medieval feudal system, where, with the church's blessings, a small caste of privileged ones built palace after palace, while the majority was starving.

[ccairnes]

06:31 PM on 03/23/2009

I read several articles about this. Shouldn't this be taken as a sign that JP Morgan is feeling randy about the economy making a recovery. Could be a good thing. They are taking a cue from the White House and planning their own "victory" garden.

[TomHunter]

08:08 PM on 03/23/2009

No, enough of this robber baron capitalism. That has to stop. Clearly we have seen in the past generation in America a Wall Street out of control. These huge pay packages themselves were the signs that we ourselves did not see!

Those huge pay packages we have been seeing the last 20 years? Know what that was? That was all the equity in America's businesses being looted. All of that money is filling Swiss Banks and Luxembourg and the others.

The understaning is simple: ANY time somebody suddenly acquires THAT MUCH money, billions--and they are not obviously Michaelangelo or Steve Jobs or Stephen King or Madonna--we should recognise we are witnessing a crime.

Every time we heard of some Wall Street person with some crazy huge payday--we were witnessing a crime. Not a stickup with a gun but a Fraud.

Assets given fraudent valuations.

[dizmo4]

04:00 PM on 03/23/2009

1. Any purchase isn't planned until at least next year , 2010

2. According to NBC news, the Purchase is not scheduled to go through until AFTER the $25 billion Chase received from the feds has been paid back.

Maybe they won't follow through with these plans -- if thats the case then they should be nailed to the wall. But its also important that when "whistle blowing" you have all the facts and just don't jump on the anti-corporate bandwagon.

[scottarino]

05:14 PM on 03/23/2009

Yes. we must keep accusations fair and just. Forget the corporate handouts by taxpayers, forget welfare for the already super rich for a moment, forget the free market, and also forget that the one thing corporations worship is money, all they can get be it from capitalism or socialism they just want to have it. So give the big corporation baby a handout and smack them on the butt and let them go back to playing capitalism again. Just give them taxpayer money when they fail, so they can always have their mulligan, and they'll get back to flaunting it as soon as they can.

[shthar]

03:53 PM on 03/23/2009

I suppose none of you work for a company that makes, I don't know, AIRPLANES!

You want them to just sit on this money? Think about what they've done?

You got to get the $ moving to get any good out of it.

[jinxed]

04:05 PM on 03/23/2009

because taxpayer money purchased these planes, does it mean that when I need to get somewhere in a hurry all I have to do is call JP Morgan Chase and I'll get a free ride to where I want to go? I have a Chase credit card...

[nomadicexpat]

04:13 PM on 03/23/2009

REALITY CHECK

tax payer money didnt purchase these planes, JPM operating cashflow will purchase these planes .. the tax payer is a passive, subordinated investor in JPM providing bank capital -- taxpayer money is sitting there in t-bills gaining interest, your bank fees and their tradign income are paying for these plane

so no, youre still on Southwest

[SCurry713]

06:30 AM on 03/24/2009

Take it from a disgruntled Chase customer, their responce will be "I appoligize for any inconvenience... now p@ss off!"

[3015551212]

03:53 PM on 03/23/2009

Please pass around the number for JP Morgan Chase - 212-270-6000. Ask to speak to the CEO, you'll get his secretary, she's very nice, but please keep up the calls.

[wilshire]

03:37 PM on 03/23/2009

so-called whistle blowers can act like fools as in this case....jamie dimon said a few weeks ago that he will return the TARP bailout funds and he will but that is beside the point... it is now getting ridiculous that every damn thing is so scrutinized.. corporate jets are a necessary fact of life - if you were a stock holder in a public company would you want your money killing countless expensive hours on a commercial liner? I think not. and if you do not know that then you should take your big fat heads out ot your respective you-know-whats. . this is quite different from the corporate heads arriving by private jet in DC to ask for $$$ so get over it.

[Waltfl]

10:37 PM on 03/23/2009

They are not necessarily a necessary fact of life. Many extremely successful and profitable international companies do not own or operate private jets for their top-management. Example: BMW. Some own one (Berkshire), others charter them if need be. They are mainly a status symbol for under-endowed duds in pinstripes. "Who's got the biggest..."

[Waltfl]

03:36 PM on 03/23/2009

After the wall came down in 1989, due to millions of citizens protesting, Secretary General Gorbatchew was asked why the Soviet Union didn't intervene back then. He said he was in Berlin in late 1998 and saw a parade. There, even the East German elite youth, were chanting anti communist slogans while marching. He came to the conclusion that it makes no sense to hold up a system with military force when everybody, even the communist elite is done with the system.

Remember, this was a system where the people were supposed to come first. The truth was, a small elite of communist leaders were indulging in a lavish lifestyle while the rest had to live on a shoe string budget. Eventually people got sick of this and voted with their feet.

I am wondering what it takes to get people in this country so mad that 10 Million will go out on the street and demand real change.

[petman2001]

03:35 PM on 03/23/2009

I wondered, what is this OBSESSION that fat cat executives have with their jets? Then it hit me: they need to have fast, reliable transportation so, when the complete system fails, they can hop in their jets and move quickly to the Cayman Islands to be closer to their hidden assets.

[research]

03:04 PM on 03/23/2009

Charge them with Fraud and RICO. JPMoprgan invested the Swaps insurance scam, and Phil Grahm deregulated it in congress.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research

[jinxed]

04:07 PM on 03/23/2009

I would like to see phil gramm arrested for collusion, conflict of interest and fraud

[research]

05:36 PM on 03/23/2009

Fraud carries Treble damages.

[Carolab]

08:18 PM on 03/23/2009

Don't forget about collusion and conspiracy.

[Adagio]

02:31 PM on 03/23/2009

If you're going to keep beating the drum to foment populist outrage at least be honest about it. Taxpayers did NOT bail out JPM-Chase. Paulson twisted their arm in order to get them to take some of the TARP funds in order for the banks that actually needed bailing out to save face. They happen to be making money, and along the way they are spending some, too. I don't know how else we're going to get the economy back on track. Making it politically impossible for them to spend part of their wealth sure won't help.

[Waltfl]

03:20 PM on 03/23/2009

That Paulson guy... I just hope he comes to my house soon and twists my arm to take 25 Billion.

[crazylikeafox]

01:23 AM on 03/24/2009

Don't be so naive. Wamu was a gift to these thugs from Paulson and Bernanke. Chase made billions on that deal.

[Carl]

02:19 PM on 03/23/2009

Yeah, we should make all of these bank execs go back to riding horses, or maybe get them a bus pass. Let's tear down their ivory towers and make them work out of the back of their cars.
Seriously, none of this matters. Too bad no one does this kind of micro management on a government that spends 600 billion on the military but lets 500,000 people be homeless in California.
Why not raise the pitch forks over health care? Why not get angry at $2 billion submarines?
You guys get bent over private jets in a multi-trillion dollar financial industry?
In a few years, all the loans will paid back and your GE stock will be normal again. The weird thing is, the govt will show no profit on this transaction. Surprise.

A Canadian with health care and leaky, used subs. I am happy with this trade-off.

[naschkatze]

02:11 PM on 03/23/2009

Whistleblowers are a gift from God. Keep up the good fight.