By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 13 -- It was back on November 6 that JP Morgan Chase started teasing a November 14 Twitter Q&A by an unnamed executive, urging that questions be posed using the hashtag #AskJPM.
The foreseeable push-back didn't begin then. But the day before answers were promised, the hubris of bailed-out predatory lender JPM Chase believing it could launder itself through social media was brought to light.
And so the questioning began, ranging from "Can I have my home back?" through "Do you own anything you didn't steal?" Inner City Press' UN-focused following up, "Does Tony Blair still work for, or get paid by, JPMorgan Chase? For what, exactly?"
(Blair, alongside being the UN Quartet's representative on Palestine and Israel, took a job with JPMorgan Chase among others, and refused in the UN to answer Inner City Press' questions about the conflict of interest.)
After much mocking, @JPMorgan called it off: "Tomorrow's Q&A is canceled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board."
Such is the level of righteous anger, after the predatory lending, after the bail-outs. But that's among people -- in Congress, the wheels being greased, JPMorgan and Citigroup have already rehabilitated their image. That's what made them blind. Watch this site.
Footnote: Returning to a UN perspective, what would happen if the UN in Haiti asked people what they thought, after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon deemed all cholera claims "not receivable"? This is why large parts of the UN system not only never promise to answer questions -- they never do. They communicate one-way. But social media questions should be answered...
