JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Is Now A Billionaire

NEW YORK -- Jamie Dimon is finally a billionaire.

The JPMorgan Chase CEO and chairman’s net worth is now estimated at $1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His fortune has soared as shares in the country’s largest bank by assets, in which he has a $485 million stake, near a record high.

JPMorgan stock has climbed over the past year.

Bank executives do not usually become billionaires. Though Dimon took home a pay package worth $20 million last year, financiers in the three-comma club usually accumulate wealth through money management and hedge funds, according to Bloomberg. But Dimon, long a silver-coiffed media darling, has proven himself to be a survivor, even in one of the industry’s most volatile eras in recent history.

After helping to assemble Citigroup, he was forced out in 1998 by his boss and mentor, Sandy Weill. Dimon revived Chicago-based Bank One and sold it to JPMorgan in 2004. He became the chief executive of the combined bank in 2005 and, the next year, added the chairman title.

He captained the bank through the choppy seas of the financial crisis in 2007. But, facing billions in an array of fines and settlements, he began to lose shareholders’ confidence in 2013.

Still, after a contentious vote, he managed to retain his status as an “imperial CEO,” overseeing the board as chairman and thereby acting as his own boss. That year, the Financial Times dubbed him “the last king of Wall Street.”

He is even, quite literally, a survivor. After a year-long battle with throat cancer, Dimon announced he was cancer-free last December.

Last week, he told a group of investors that listening to shareholder advisory groups critical of his management was “lazy.”

“If you do that, you are just irresponsible, I’m sorry,” he said. “And you probably aren’t a very good investor either.

JPMorgan spokesman Andrew Gray declined to comment.

At least in the fictional milieu of HBO's "Silicon Valley," Dimon is in some interesting company:

Wages For College Grads Are Now Lower Than They Were 15 Years Ago

College graduates, brace yourselves for some disappointing news.

Wages for university grads are 2.5 percent lower than what they were 15 years ago, according to the latest edition of the Economic Policy Institute's annual report on the labor market prospects of new workers. The research found that young college grads’ hourly wages currently sit at an average of $17.94, or just over $37,000 annually. In 2000, the average hourly rate was $18.41.

This drop has hit female grads hardest: Their wages fell from $17.74 in 2000 to $16.56 in 2015 -- a 6.7 percent decrease. Wages for their male counterparts actually increased by 1 percent over the same time period -- from $19.44 to $19.64.

Female grads, per the study, earn 15.7 percent less than their male counterparts, or roughly 84.3 cents to a man's dollar. Meanwhile, the wage gap between men and women in the national workforce overall sees women earning only 78 cents to a man's dollar. While the gap is narrower for female college grads, according to the EPI's study, these data show that having a higher education degree does not necessarily mean equal pay for young women.

“It’s possible that since we’re looking at averages, we’re not picking up on growth in high-end jobs,” senior economist Elise Gould, one of the study’s authors, said of the diverging wages among men and women.

Men are not faring much better, though. Their 1 percent wage increase is minuscule, considering the fact that it represents a period of 15 years.

The national unemployment rate is currently at 5.4 percent, which signals a promising wage advantage for those just entering the workforce, The Wall Street Journal noted recently. But the EPI study, which focuses on younger workers, found that unemployment remains high for college graduates, 7.2 percent of whom are without jobs.

The unemployment rate for grads was 5.5 percent in 2007, before the recession. The EPI researchers point to dwindling demand for goods and services, which negatively impacts companies’ ability to bring in new hires.

Despite their degrees and skills, many grads find themselves downgrading to less-desired employers when jobs are scarce, the researchers found.

This can be detrimental to young professionals' careers, since low starting salaries will likely set them back for subsequent jobs. Research has shown that those who graduate in a poor economy can expect wage losses for as long as 10 years as a result of low initial wages.

For young people, this loss “probably puts off other investments because they don’t have the income to pay for it, like buying a car or a house,” Gould said.

The report also found that college grads aren’t heading to graduate school as a way to ride out the poor job market. Enrollment rates for additional schooling, like master’s programs, are relatively equal to enrollment rates before the recession. While the percentage of women in grad school has picked up following a continuous decrease since 2010, enrollment rates for men dropped 6 percentage points between 2011 and 2014.

Many college students take on campus jobs to pay their tuition, noted Will Kimball, another author on the study. “If there aren’t enough opportunities for them to earn money or put themselves through college, that certainly will impact their ability to enroll in further programs.”

In order for college graduates to see better prospects, policies that bump up employment and salaries must be enacted, and all workers -- not just new graduates -- will need to have greater bargaining power.

“The biggest thing is to approach an economy that has full employment, where people can negotiate better wages and get better jobs when employers need more workers,” Kimball said.

Dick Fuld, Disgraced Former CEO Of Lehman Brothers, Makes Bizarre Comeback

Dick Fuld, part villain and part unforgivably very confused bystander to the financial crisis in the eyes of most -- and a victim of the financial crisis to himself -- made a bizarre comeback at a conference in New York on Thursday.

In his first public appearance (other than sworn congressional testimony) since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Fuld blamed regulators, borrowers and rumors for the end of the 158-year-old, $47 billion firm he led. It was a “perfect storm” that sank Lehman, not his own leadership or decisions, Fuld said, while touting Lehman’s “success” to the audience. He also claimed that every one of the 27,000 employees who once worked for Lehman had been a risk manager, because they owned stock in the firm.

Lehman’s September 2008 collapse was the first of many bank failures and market seizures that fall. It sparked the financial crisis that ended in a $416 billion bank bailout and left the country mired in the Great Recession.

Fuld's comments were initially carried live on the financial news network CNBC, but the feed was pulled by conference organizers part way through his remarks. Technically, Fuld was at the conference to deliver a keynote address titled, "How Emerging Growth Companies Can Succeed in Today's Capital Markets: Perspectives from My Journey." His comments, however, were a well-rehearsed if less-than-convincing defense of his own actions leading up to the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

He denied that Lehman was a failed company in September 2008 and intimated that he and the firm were victims of a conspiracy centered around former competitors in regulatory positions with a vendetta against him. Fuld, nicknamed the “Gorilla” during his career for his overly aggressive style, seemed temperamentally unchanged, telling one conference questioner, “Why don’t you bite me?”

Months prior to Lehman’s fall, Fuld had declared that “the worst of the impact of the financial markets is behind us” and pushed subordinates to take more risk, sidelining or firing those who disagreed with him.

Fuld is now working at his own firm, which is focused on the kind of small deals he would have scoffed at as CEO of a massive investment bank. The venue itself was an indication of his fall: an otherwise barely noteworthy conference focused on selling shares in tiny public companies.

Nike Just Became Part Of The FIFA Corruption Scandal

It is not just FIFA officials and little-known sports marketing groups who are finding themselves in the crosshairs of the U.S.'s investigation into long-term corruption in international soccer. Nike seems to be caught up in the maelstrom as well.

Remarks by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Wednesday, as well as indictments released by the Justice Department the same day, indicate that the iconic American corporation has been pulled into the massive global corruption scandal. Detailing the long history of bribery by some of the world's soccer governing bodies, Lynch said those offenses also extended to "agreements regarding sponsorship of the Brazilian national soccer team by a major U.S. sportswear company."

Her remarks referred to the landmark ten-year, $160 million deal that Nike struck in 1996 to sponsor the Brazil national team's well-known yellow, blue and green uniforms. Last year, Jose Hawilla, the owner and founder of the Florida- and Brazil-based sports marketing firm the Traffic Group, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for, among other things, accepting and passing along bribes and kickbacks in connection with that deal. Hawilla paid these bribes and kickbacks to a senior official in the Brazilian Football federation (CBF), who signed the deal along with Hawilla and four Nike executives.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch discusses the investigation during a press conference on Wednesday.

Lynch's comments followed the Justice Department's announcement that 14 people, including nine FIFA officials, had been arrested and indicted on Wednesday on numerous charges that include "racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies."

The Justice Department's indictment notes that Hawilla and the unnamed Brazilian official also engaged in other corrupt deals in the years following the Nike contract. While it does not accuse Nike of any wrongdoing or of any knowledge of Hawilla's corrupt practices, it is unclear to what extent Nike vetted Hawilla before allowing him to act as their middleman with the Brazilian soccer federation.

"Like fans everywhere we care passionately about the game and are concerned by the very serious allegations," Nike said in a statement to The Huffington Post on Wednesday. "Nike believes in ethical and fair play in both business and sport and strongly opposes any form of manipulation or bribery. We have been cooperating, and will continue to cooperate, with the authorities."

Nike introduced its first soccer boot in 1971, but its market share remained small. Globally, it was barely a player in a multibillion-dollar market, then dominated by its chief competitor, Adidas. In 1994, Nike began a major push to increase its presence in the soccer world. As part of this effort, the company's co-founder and chairman, Phil Knight, "openly set his sights" on sponsoring Brazil's national team that year. By 1996, the company was able to sign the deal with CBF and has supplied the Brazilian team's uniforms ever since.

Brazil soccer player Luiz Gustavo poses for pictures during the presentation of the team's new uniform for the 2014 FIFA World Cup on Nov. 24, 2013.

Now, however, Brazil's soccer federation is named in the Justice Department's investigation.

"Other alleged schemes relate to the payment and receipt of bribes and kickbacks in connection with the sponsorship of CBF by a major U.S. sportswear company, the selection of the host country for the 2010 World Cup and the 2011 FIFA presidential election," read a statement from the department.

In 2008, Nike renegotiated its contract with Brazil, which now lasts until 2018 and is expected to be worth $34 million, SportsPro Media reported last year.

Debt Forgiveness Could Save This Woman's Home, But Nation's Housing Chief Still Says No

Sylvia Alvarez didn't grasp the enormity of the crisis about to engulf her community until she returned to her office in Tampa, Florida, after a long weekend and found her voicemail filled with messages from distraught homeowners.

It was early 2008. The bottom had fallen out of both the housing market and the local economy, and record numbers of people had begun defaulting on their mortgages. Callers flooded the phone lines to the Housing & Education Alliance, Alvarez’s housing counseling agency -- not realizing the same forces that had wrecked their finances were also threatening to sink the agency they were now turning to for help.

“I was overwhelmed,” Alvarez said recently, recalling the twin challenges of trying to help people save their homes and also keep afloat her nonprofit, which was largely dependent on vanishing support from the mortgage industry. “I remember saying, ‘How in the hell are we going to do this?’”

Seven years later, the Housing & Education Alliance has rebounded remarkably, after subsisting for years on a meager budget. The organization’s survival is a testament to the perseverance of Alvarez and her staff, who worked with little or no pay for years. The foreclosure rate in Tampa is the third highest in the country, but the situation is vastly improved from even two years ago.

But this otherwise feel-good story comes with a distressing coda. After years of working long hours at great personal sacrifice to save other people’s homes, Alvarez is now on the cusp of losing her own.

The specific problem that Alvarez faces is the same one that's vexed hundreds of her clients -- and many of her own staff -- over the years: She is underwater on her mortgage, meaning she owes substantially more on her home than it is worth.

More than three years ago, with government prodding, the mortgage industry began offering some homeowners in this situation a form of assistance known as principal reduction. Big banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, under multibillion-dollar legal settlements with the Justice Department and other federal and state agencies, could claim credit by writing off some of the debt owed by people like Alvarez.

Debt forgiveness can yield benefits to everyone involved. The homeowner is no longer tempted to walk away, leaving a home to decay and lose more value. And the person, or family, isn’t subjected to the financial and emotional trauma of losing a home.

On paper, Alvarez would seem a perfect candidate. She fell into default in 2008, after her income as executive director of the Housing & Education Alliance plummeted to $17,000 from $73,000 the year before, according to forms the nonprofit filed with the IRS.

After years of reduced income and struggling to make ends meet -- "I ate a lot of Cheerios and Special K," she says -- Alvarez finally saw her salary rebound this year to its pre-crash level. And because of all the missed payments and accumulated fees and interest, Alvarez and her husband now owe $419,000 -- over $100,000 more than the couple thinks the house is worth.

But Alvarez, like the majority of the 5 million or so borrowers who are underwater on their mortgages, is not eligible for principal reduction. That’s because her loan, like millions of others, is controlled by Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant that was put into conservatorship by the U.S. government after an epic bailout in 2008. Despite its status as a quasi-government entity, and despite supposed pressure from senior members of the Obama administration, Fannie Mae doesn't permit debt forgiveness on its mortgages.

For years, administration officials blamed this on a career bureaucrat who'd ascended to the top of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the group created to oversee Fannie and its cousin company, Freddie Mac. That official, Edward DeMarco, vigorously opposed principal forgiveness, arguing that offering such relief would pose a “moral hazard.” Writing off some people's debt, he said, would likely encourage other people to stop paying their mortgages in order to take advantage of the same opportunity.

There was an economic rationale as well, DeMarco argued. Under the conditions of the bailout, Fannie and Freddie are essentially required to turn over all their profits to the government -- and supposedly, forgiving homeowner debt could mean eating into those profits. (As of this spring, the two groups have paid back roughly $40 billion more than they received during the bailout.)

DeMarco, who was then the acting director of the FHFA, hewed to this reasoning even after his own agency produced research showing that offering targeted principal reduction could actually save the companies money. He continued to make this argument even as housing activists protested in front of his own home.

In late 2013, the Senate confirmed former Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to replace DeMarco, fueling hopes that the housing companies would quickly reverse their position. But Watt hasn't appeared any more receptive to debt forgiveness than his predecessor, and with the foreclosure crisis receding into the distance, the Obama administration has not seemed inclined to press the issue.

Through a spokesperson, Watt declined an interview request from The Huffington Post. Instead, an FHFA spokeswoman forwarded snippets of Watt’s comments on the subject to Congress. In one exchange from December, Watt sparred with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a vocal proponent of principal reduction.

"It has been six years since Congress created FHFA and in all that time your agency has never, not once permitted a family to reduce its principal mortgage through Fannie or Freddie," Warren said.

Warren cited a Congressional Budget Office report from 2013 that determined a modest principal reduction plan could help 1.2 million borrowers and save Fannie and Freddie -- and by extension taxpayers -- $2.8 billion.

In response, Watt said he was looking for a "win-win" situation in which "responsible" borrowers might get assistance.

"We're still studying the issue," he told a House committee in January.

Kevin Stein is an associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, a group that has advocated for broad-based principal reduction. Stein said he is frustrated with Watt's responses, but hasn't given up hope. "Maybe the time to end the studies and make a decision is now," he said.

In recent months, Alvarez has sought to offload her home through a short sale, in which Fannie would accept less than the amount owed on the mortgage and agree to release Alvarez from her financial obligation. Earlier this week, though, Fannie Mae rejected an offer from a prospective buyer that would have priced the house at about $253,000, according to Alvarez.

Alvarez said she isn’t sure what to do next.

"We have no sense of security," she said. “Now I know exactly what our clients have gone though."

Jack Ma Says Women Executives Are Alibaba's 'Special Sauce'

HANGZHOU, China -- While Silicon Valley grapples with a major gender gap in its workforce, Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba, said Wednesday that women are the "secret sauce" behind his company’s success.

The proclamation came during Alibaba’s first-ever Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship. The two-day event in Hangzhou, China, included speeches from women as varied as Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, actress and entrepreneur Jessica Alba and Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s founder and editor-in-chief.

Since starting Alibaba out of his apartment in 1999, both Ma and his company have grown to be giants in China's tech landscape. The business now stands as the country's biggest online marketplace, and has garnered Ma a net worth of over $24 billion. Alibaba is so prominent that over 60 percent of packages delivered in China are from its orders, according to a 2014 New York Times article.

The company was using the event this week to promote women's entrepreneurship, as well as its own relatively strong record on gender equality. According to Alibaba, over 40 percent of all its employees are women. Women make up nearly 35 percent of the company's high-level managers and one-third of its founders.

While those numbers fall short of total gender parity, they still stand out when compared with most Silicon Valley firms.

Several of Alibaba's high-level female employees spoke at the event, including Zhang Wei, Alibaba Group senior vice president, and Lucy Peng, Alibaba Group chief people officer and CEO of a financial services subsidiary. Zhang acted as host throughout the day on Wednesday, while Peng gave a speech on how she evolved at the company and learned to overrule male colleagues.

Ma spoke at the end of the event, and fielded questions from both fans and reporters. He said women approach communication and problem-solving in a way that's particularly important for a service and retail company like Alibaba.

“Men think about themselves more; women think about others more,” Ma said. “Women think about taking care of their parents, their children.”

That essentialist language might raise some eyebrows in feminist circles, as would distinctions that Ma occasionally laid out between men who operate according to logic and women who act more on intuition. But Ma frequently invoked ancient Chinese philosophy, particularly Taoist concepts of yin and yang, in describing his vision of the strengths that women have brought to Alibaba.

"I feel proud that more than 34 percent of senior management are women. They really make this company’s yin and yang balanced," Ma said. "Women balance the logic and the instinct. I would say this is the 'secret sauce' of the company."

Asked about the gender gap in Silicon Valley companies, Ma said that while he doesn't know the numbers, he believes that the most successful companies likely make gender parity a priority.

At least one 2014 report by Fenwick and West appears to bear out Ma’s prediction. The report shows that while Silicon Valley lags far behind in gender equality, the top 15 tech firms do significantly better than the top 100 when it comes to including women in the highest leadership posts.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Urges GWU Graduates To Develop Moral Compass

Apple CEO Tim Cook urged graduating George Washington University students to follow their values and find a job that helps them do good in a commencement speech delivered Sunday.

Cook talked of justice and injustice in a speech that paid homage to Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, delivered to a crowd on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., VentureBeat reported. The university expected about 25,000 people to attend the commencement exercises, according to the outlet.

The CEO mentioned the civil rights leader three times in his 20-minute speech, and said that King, along with Kennedy, had been one of his childhood heroes.

Cook, who grew up in Alabama, shared a story about his first visit to the nation's capital in 1977, at the age of 16. On the trip, Cook met with then-President Carter right after meeting Alabama's governor, George Wallace, who had opposed desegregation in the '60s. (Wallace is perhaps best remembered for his 1963 inaugural address that called for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.")

“Meeting my governor was not an honor for me,” Cook told the graduates. “Shaking his hand felt like a betrayal of my own beliefs. It felt wrong, like I was selling a piece of my soul.”

It was very different from meeting America's then-president, Cook said.

“Carter was kind and compassionate. He held the most powerful job in the world, and had not sacrificed any of his humanity,” he said. “It was clear to me that one was right and one was wrong."

Cook ended with a call for graduates to live their values and change the world -- and said that working at Apple had helped him do just that:

We believe that a company that has values and acts on them can really change the world. And an individual can too. That can be you. That must be you. Graduates, your values matter. They are your North Star. Otherwise it’s just a job -- and life is too short for that. ... You don’t have to choose between doing good and doing well. It’s a false choice, today more than ever.

Your challenge is to find work that pays the rent, puts food on the table, and lets you do what is right and good and just.

Words to aspire to.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated incorrectly that Cook spoke about John F. Kennedy. He spoke about Robert F. Kennedy.