Bailout

How Jamie Dimon sees himself

By Felix Salmon

Well done to Jessica Pressler for picking up on this astonishing photo from the house that Jamie Dimon is still trying to sell in Chicago; it’s now listed at $9.5 million, down from an original asking price of $13.5 million. That’s less than $1.2 million per bedroom: a bargain!

I’m trying to work out why Dimon would force his house guests to look at this picture every time they descend the stairs. The rest of the photos reveal Dimon to be decidedly conservative when it comes to his living style, in a high-plutocrat sort of way: lots of grand columns and overstuffed armchairs, that sort of thing. And, of course, a heavy bag in the gym.

But the portrait in the stairwell — that’s something else. This is the polar opposite of the smiling vacation photo on the mantlepiece: in fact, there’s no face at all, just sheer power and authority, presented as iconically as possible.

Dimon is rich and powerful, of course, but he’s careful with his public image, which is human and collegial. He’s not a bully. Weirdly, his private face seems to be more humorless and forbidding than his public face. Which just goes to reinforce the general impression that Joe Evangelisti, Dimon’s PR head, is doing a very good job.

Full post as published by Macroprudential on July 22, 2010 (boomark / email).