DUMB AND DUMBER

Plus the week’s best snark, and something wonderful.

One of the funny things about being human is that no matter how successful we are, we always end up doing something stupid. I prove this point hourly. The hope is that over time we learn from our mistakes and don't repeat them.

But who am I kidding?

So let’s get to it! Here's a summary of dumb moves from Wall Street to Main Street to Tokyo.

DUMB — JAMIE DIMON AND HIS ILK

I just wanted to say ilk.

The fabulously successful CEO of JPMorgan is so beloved the bank is giving him 1.5 million stock options not to quit. Problem is, some employees are quitting.

Jamie Dimon is the most prominent of a growing number of managers demanding employees come back to the office, even though many of these same companies made more money when people were working from home.

Dimon is not the only Wall Street boss to insist on seeing workers IRL, as the kids say.

David “D-Sol” Solomon has ended work-from-home at Goldman Sachs. Perhaps he missed being around people after the pandemic put a crimp in his other job as a dance party DJ.

There has been tremendous pushback from employees. One survey shows 40% of people working at least one day a week from home would look for another job if forced back into the office full-time. Some companies are relenting, though still insisting workers be at their desks Monday and Friday because they want proof you’re putting in a full work week. They don’t trust you, even though your productivity shot up 200% in 2020 and you had your best year.

Recruiters are seeing top talent balk at such demands. “Candidates have the power right now,” says Andrea Light, associate director at recruiting firm Vaco. She’s telling her corporate clients, “If you’re looking for specialized talent, why do you want to limit yourself to people that are right here in your geography, when you can take them from anywhere?”

Companies with flexibility are smart. Bosses who think we’re back to 2019 are dumb.

DUMBER — JAPAN

Where to start?

Japan may lose $20 billion hosting the ghost town Olympics through a combination of bad luck and poor decision-making.

The Olympics were supposed to be Japan’s reintroduction onto the world stage, but the fiasco has backfired with locals. The Japanese public has been clamoring for months to postpone or cancel the games. Cut your losses! Let NBC figure out how to get everyone to Orlando, because Florida doesn’t care about Covid!

It’s so bad that Toyota is pulling ads from Japanese coverage.

Now the guy in charge of the opening and closing ceremonies has been fired because a video from the ’90s shows him joking about the Holocaust in a comedy skit (“let’s massacre Jewish people”). Hilarious! Maybe you shouldn’t put a comedian in charge of your big moment! This is like hiring Louis C.K. to kick off the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A.

It’s the latest in a series of mistakes causing the world’s third largest economy to fall off the PR balance beam:

— The composer for the opening ceremonies resigned after, it turns out, he once bullied a disabled classmate by forcing him “to eat his own feces and masturbate in front of other classmates.”

— Even the Paralympics in August are having a tough moment, as champion swimmer Becca Meyers quit Team USA due to restrictions on how many people can travel as personal care assistants. Meyers is both deaf and nearly blind, and she needs her mom to help her get around. The team said her mother couldn’t go to Japan because of Covid restrictions, so Becca isn’t going either.

I’m just waiting for Simone Biles to test positive for Covid and be barred from competing. If that happens, I’m out.

DUMBERER — EUROPEAN BEACH HANDBALL

Beach handball, not to be confused with beach volleyball, is not as popular in the U.S. as it is in Europe. Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either. Women players are required to wear bikinis. So when the Norwegian women’s team chose to wear shorts during a bronze medal game at the Euro 2021 tournament — just like the guys! — the team was fined $1,700.

Because, you know, rules are rules, and we know who makes the rules.

Meantime, women playing beach volleyball at the Olympics will have the choice of wearing shorts and tank tops, because... it’s 2021. At least one good thing is coming out of Tokyo.

DUMBERERER — CALIFORNIA LOSING OUT TO SHOPLIFTERS

Shoplifting has surged in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles because the state no longer considers any theft under $950 a felony. Nobody has time to hassle with misdemeanor charges because the jails are overcrowded and the five remaining cops who work in California are busy with a skyrocketing murder rate. It’s costing businesses so much money that stores in San Francisco are either closing early or closing for good.

Now Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is doing everything he can to respond to the nonexistent threat of Caitlyn Jenner replacing him in a recall election, has announced the California Highway Patrol will increase its retail crime detail. Yes, the people who send you to traffic school are now supposed to help stop the onslaught of grab-and-smash incidents which no longer involve much grabbing and smashing. It’s all very nonchalant.

Speaking of California, Chapman University’s Joel Kotkin has been looking at the data on who’s leaving the Golden State, and it’s not good. He says over two million more people have left California than arrived over the last couple of decades, and a lot of the people leaving are in their taxpaying prime, earning $70,000 to $200,000 a year.

“What’s shocking to me is the fact that so much of the media,” Kotkin says, “won’t acknowledge what the problems really are.”

Kotkin says while California “still has enormous things going for it,” he nevertheless fears that “the state is in denial.”

Kotkin explains here:

DUMBERERERER — CROSS-DRESSER BLOWS HIS COVER

I’m throwing this in here, because I can.

An Indonesian man with Covid posed as his wife and used her negative Covid test to catch a flight home. It worked, until a flight attendant saw the man go into the lavatory dressed as a woman, wearing a face veil, then come out dressed as man, veil free.

Dude, come on. Not only are you dangerously selfish, you’re an idiot. At least keep the criminally negligent ruse going on for another couple of hours. That veil might help stop the spread, and while I know it’s probably stifling to wear, suck it up. Welcome to your wife’s world.

The faux female was taken into custody when the plane landed and tested for Covid. The test was positive. What happens next to the passenger can best be described as negative.

DUMBEST — TOM BARRACK

A self-made successful businessman once told me that his mother taught him, “You can be poor, but you don’t have to be dumb.”

On the other hand, you can be rich, and still be very dumb. Tom Barrack stands accused of trying to influence his old friend Donald Trump to... er... say nice things about the United Arab Emirates? Go easy on Big Oil? I’m still not clear on this, but Barrack and two others are charged with acting as agents of the UAE to influence a presidential campaign, the U.S. government, and public opinion.

In other words, he did what lobbyists do.

The problem, according to the feds, is that Barrack didn’t follow the rules and let the government know he was working with the UAE, and then he lied about it.

That a billionaire — a BILLIONAIRE — who’s spent his life doing complex negotiations would (allegedly) lobby a U.S. president on behalf of a foreign government and not realize there are rules about this sort of thing...

That a billionaire — a BILLIONAIRE — would then (allegedly) lie to federal authorities, forgetting the first rule of wrongdoing -- the coverup is always worse than the crime...

Dumb.

Still, even though the FBI calls it a “betrayal,” the allegations against Barrack don’t quite rise to the level of high treason. If the charges are true, he’s just really stupid. Illegally stupid. It’s not clear he even got paid for the work, though the UAE has invested in his former company.

Let’s see how the facts play out. A prosecutor can claim almost anything in an indictment, and Tom Barrack’s attorneys say the former head of Colony Capital who once owned Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch and bought Countrywide’s old Gulfstream and sold Donald Trump the Plaza Hotel which Trump later resold at a loss is (inhale) innocent.

Dumbest of all: It doesn’t even look like the plan worked. The Emiratis pretty much got bupkis.

STILL TO BE DETERMINED — WHO’S DUMBER? FAUCI OR PAUL?

Sen. Rand Paul wants the Department of Justice to look into possible perjury charges against Dr. Anthony Fauci. The doctor denied under oath that the National Institutes of Health sent China money to help fund “gain-of-function” viral testing at the Wuhan lab, work that may or may not have led to the unleashing of Covid-19. Sen. Paul isn’t buying Dr. Fauci's denials.

It made for good TV.

One of these guys is an idiot, or worse, but who?

I don’t fawn over Dr. Fauci as many others do. He told us last year we didn’t really need masks, even though he knew we needed masks. He just didn’t trust us. He knew we’d hoard them, and there wouldn’t be enough for frontline healthcare workers.

I get it, but still, we were lied to.

On the other hand, Sen. Rand Paul is the sort of self-righteous, second generation, quadrennial presidential candidate who’s never happy with anyone. I mean, can you imagine having Dr. Paul as your ophthalmologist? “I think Afghan translators who helped our soldiers survive over there should not be granted U.S. visas to flee the Taliban. Also, you’ll soon be blind from macular degeneration.”

Hard to like that guy.

SNARK OF THE WEEK!

Blaire Erskine does a fabulous job punking people on social media. She often poses as someone affiliated with folks who’ve gone viral for doing something terrible. This week she had me laughing as she portrayed an Amazon employee talking about the billionaire space race. I love her snark.

(Also, I don’t want to post the images here, but someone is now selling dildos which resemble space vehicles created by America's billionaires. I have no doubt some people will buy the Space Sex adult toy to fantasize about Elon Musk, but I’m not sure there’s a market for the Bezos Blue Orgasm.)

SOMETHING WONDERFUL

Let’s end on a high note.

I have to share this wonderful story from Mitch Albom’s Bulletin, where he writes about the orphanage he runs in Haiti. As you can imagine, it’s not an easy endeavor in the best of times. Haiti never experiences the best of times, and right now it’s going through the worst of times.

However, joy can be found anywhere. The orphanage has a school which is sending its first graduate to college in America. As I said earlier, you can be poor, but you don’t have to be dumb. This young man is brilliant.

Did I miss anything exceptionally dumb this week? Put it in the comments or email me at jane@janewells.com.

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