BOTOX FOR CAMELS, BANKER GROVELING, SHARKS BUT NO WORRIES
When Barack Obama told a crowd at a 2008 campaign event, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” the McCain team claimed it was aimed at vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki, now the Biden press secretary, defended her candidate by pointing out that the expression “means you can dress up something but it doesn’t change what it is.”
It seems that in some cases, if you use the right appearance enhancer, you can indeed change something. In a beauty contest held in Saudi Arabia, more than 40 contestants were disqualified for using Botox, facelifts and other “enhancements” to improve the appearances of their heads, necks and, yes, humps. The entrants were competitors in the camel beauty pageant that is the highlight of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Camel Festival. When it comes to reporting on the regime, the crime is to refuse to put lipstick on the policies of the ruling regime, the punishment severe.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, is learning the art of the climb-down. He joked during a speech in Hong Kong that both his bank and China’s communist party are celebrating their 100th birthday, and that “I’d make a bet that we last longer.” His eye on the vast Chinese market and the equally vast range of tools available to Xi to make Dimon wish he had never heard of China, Dimon released a statement, “I regret and should not have made that comment.” Figuring that might not be enough to placate Xi, he later added, “I truly regret my recent comment because it’s never right to joke about or denigrate any group of people, whether it’s a country, its leadership, or any part of a society and culture. Speaking in that way can take away from the constructive and thoughtful dialogue in society, which is needed now more than ever.” A 54-word apology for an 8-word joke that, given the relative financial health of JPMorgan Chase and the People’s Republic of China might just prove prescient. Unless Dimon’s long-run view proves inconsistent with the three-year period during which Xi Jinping’s “Made in China 2025” program aims to secure for the communist regime global dominance of key industries, which must include finance.
In the middle of last year, when the debate about work-from-home vs. full return to the office was raging, Dimon contributed this, “People don’t like commuting, but so what.” The Wall Street Journal now reports that it has been told that Dimon “accepts that some staff won’t work five days in the office going forward.” If the price of Dimon’s candor is an occasional retreat, so what.
Michigan-based Lake Superior State University (LSSU) published its 2022 Banished Words List of the 10 words and terms most often cited for misuse, overuse and uselessness over the past 12 months, selected from 1,250 nominations. Not for it “a deep dive” into “the new normal” “at the end of the day” as we “circle back” while “you’re on mute”. Or “no worries”. One contributor wrote to LSSU about that phrase, “If I’m not worried, I don’t want anyone telling me not to worry. If I am upset, I want to discuss being upset.” Not the ideal dinner partner.
According to Trevor Kavanagh, writing in Britain’s The Sun, LSSU erred in tracing the Aussie phrase to the movie “Crocodile Dundee.” Kavanagh, an Aussie who decades ago elevated the level of political reporting and comment in Britain by trading his country’s sunshine for Britain’s gloomy skies, writes, “In fact the expression was set in stone in 1853 at the waterside Sydney suburb, Sans Souci. Which, as any fule kno, is French for ‘without care’. Sans souci, mate.” On the shore of Botany Bay, where Captain Cook made landfall.
If “no worries” is fine for a nation with leaping marsupials and 38% of worldwide unprovoked shark encounters, it should be fine for the U.S., even in these times.
Bob Sternfels, who took over as global managing partner of McKinsey & Co. this past summer, has serious reforms in mind to prevent repeats of recent stumbles that caused the unhorsing of his predecessor. Among them is the elimination of tenure as a qualification for promotion to partner. “Tenure … is not a good approximation of skill,” the new boss told The WSJ. Sternfels has been with the powerhouse consultancy for 27 years.