Warren E. Buffett offered an unusual defense of Jamie Dimon on Wednesday morning, comparing the billions of dollars that JPMorgan Chase has paid in fines to state troopers handing out a speeding ticket.
“If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket,†Mr. Buffett told DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview on CNBC. “And you’ve had a lot of cops been following a long time and they’re going to write some tickets.â€
In addition to agreeing to a $100 million “ticket†from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, JPMorgan has paid $920 million in fines in the London Whale cases to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Conduct Authority of Britain, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The governmet is also investigating the sale of flawed mortgage securities, accusations the bank manipulated energy markets and JPMorgan’s hiring practices in China.
But the billionaire investor said you’ve got to look at the overall record of Mr. Dimon.
“Babe Ruth had 60 home runs that one year. I don’t know how many times he struck out,†Mr. Buffett said. “I don’t care.â€
The Sultan of Swat recorded 89 strikeouts in 1927 while increasing the single-season home run record to 60. Mr. Ruth was paid $70,000 that year.
In comparison, JPMorgan’s board cut Mr. Dimon’s total compensation for 2012 by 50 percent to $11.5 million. And the bank said last week that it lost $380 million in recording the first quarterly loss under its embattled chief executive.
