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Judgement for JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon has come at the bank's annual shareholder's meeting in Tampa, Florida this morning. Shareholders have voted to allow Dimon to maintain his role as chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

After a year in which management mistakes led to the bank losing a fortune on bad bets in the market, there was a proposal to divide up the roles of CEO and Chairman of the Board.

Mike Mayo, banking analyst with CLSA, has been asking hard questions in public about how JPMorgan is run. He joined Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio prior to today's shareholder meeting to discuss. 

JPMorgan Chase & Co. holds its annual meeting of shareholders today, in Tampa, Florida. Jamie Dimon heads the company -- he is its chairman and CEO. Some investors say those two roles should be separate, especially since JPMorgan suffered a trading loss now valued at $6.2 billion. But shareholders have voted this morning to maintain Dimon's role as both CEO and chairman of the bank.

Many analysts give Dimon a lot of credit for steering JPMorgan through the financial crisis to record profitability. Chris Wheeler, with Mediobanca, attributes Dimon’s success to his outsize personality and his autonomy.

“It does mean that he can really execute strategy in a fairly robust fashion,” Wheeler says.

Dimon, the CEO, has been able to make changes without worrying about having to get buy-in from another chairman. In other words, he is his own yes man.

Analyst Gerard Cassidy, with RBC Capital Markets, thinks the company wouldn't change much if these two roles were separated.

“I think that, at the ground level, the changes would not be that noticeable,” he says.

But it would be a slap in the face to Dimon, which is something Chris Wheeler says would be disruptive -- at least early on.

“The question is whether it is better for U.S. corporate governance longer term than it is disruptive in the short-term," Wheeler poses.

Wheeler says it could change things in the industry. Right now, only three of the top 20 banks have separate roles for chairmen and CEO's.

This final note today, which -- and there's no other way to say it -- started off as simply a tragedy.

World Nutella Day was called off, not for lack of trying by fans of the chocolatey hazelnut goodness. It was sheer corporate spite. Or product protection, take your pick.

Sara Rosso, an American living in Italy, started the observance of all things Nutella six years ago. February 5 was the designated day.

Last week, she got a cease and desist order from the Italian firm Ferrero -- maker of said Nutella.

Today, breaking news, the spreadable treat will fully be celebrated. A statement was sent to Bloomberg Businessweek, claiming Ferrero will let the day live on.

“The case arose from a routine brand defense procedure that was activated as a result of some misuse of the Nutella brand on the fan page. Ferrero is pleased to announce that today, after contacting Sara Rosso and finding together the appropriate solutions, it immediately stopped the previous action,” the company stated.

It's international quiz time on the Marketplace Morning Report. Stephan Richter, editor-in-chief of the online international affairs magazine, The Globalist, brings us the question below.

What percentage of Americans own stock?

Scroll down to see the answer and click on the audio player above to hear more about how Americans participate in the markets.















Answer: A. 47 percent of Americans own stock, with the wealthiest 10 percent owning 81 percent of all stock assets.

Also: the legacy of Kierkegaard; the creator of Lyle Crocodile has died; Aussie airliner Qantas commissions flight-length books.

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Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and outgoing acting Commissioner Steven Miller are being grilled. The IRS is under fire because some conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status were given extra scrutiny in recent years. An inspector general has called the actions "inappropriate."

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As it roared through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, packing winds of up to 200 mph, the twister flattened buildings. Searchers continue to look for survivors and those who were killed.

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The Chinese military has resumed hacking government agencies and American companies after a three-month hiatus, according to private security firm Mandiant.

The news comes as “spear phishing”, a form of targeted hacking, is drawing a lot of attention. An organization calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army has used the tactic to attack several media organizations, most recently the Financial Times.

"When somebody singles you out as an individual to target with an attack, we call it 'spear phishing'," says Chester Wisniewski with the cyber security firm Sophos. "They find some way of convincing you that they are the target brand and get you to type in your password and give it to them."

Wisniewski says the best way to avoid getting spear-phished is not go to any password-protected websites from a link recieved via email. Instead, users should access social media and banking websites directly via a browser.

One World Trade Center, which is popularly known as the Freedom Tower, has more than two million square feet of office space to fill on 104 floors. John Lyons is working to rent space above all that.

“Yes, all of the FM and TV in the market we can accommodate,” says Lyons, director of broadcast communications at a real estate firm called Durst Organization.

His aim is to cover the newly installed spire with broadcast antennas, like the north tower of the old World Trade Center had. The financial stakes are high, and it’s a more competitive market, as he can see from the window of his office, 740-feet above Midtown Manhattan.

“Empire State Building, One World Trade Center and 4 Times Square right from here, within my peripheral vision,” he says, pointing out the antenna-topped skyscrapers.

After 9/11, many broadcasters crowded onto the tower of the Empire State Building, bringing a windfall of $16 million in 2010, the last full year for which figures are publicly available. 4 Times Square tripled the height of its rooftop tower to fit even more antennas. That means now broadcasters don't have to rely on just one site, as many did in 2001.

“That was ‘all eggs in one basket’ at the time,” Lyons says of the old days. “You had one facility. TV was mostly at the World Trade Center and the FM was at the Empire State Building, and they didn’t have a back-up facility.”

Jazz radio station WBGO felt it couldn't afford one.

“We were a typical urban public radio station that was you know trying to get enough money to just keep our program service alive,” says CEO Cephas Bowles. The station has since opted for a second site.

Lyons is trying to capitalize on this new demand for two antennas. He says stations could have any combination of primary and secondary towers distributed among One World Trade Center and 4 Times Square, whose antenna towers are managed by Durst, and the Empire State Building. More choice means better signal coverage, not to mention better deals.

“I want to say prices probably go down,” Lyons says. "The broadcasters have a chance to negotiate better because they have more facilities to go into.”

At the newest skyscraper, One World Trade Center, Lyons hopes to lock in antenna leases worth $10 million a year.

Sales of video game consoles have been falling for the past few years, as more consumers download games on their smartphones and tablets. Microsoft's Xbox 360 is the best-selling console in the country, but sales last month fell 45 percent from a year ago. In hopes of turning that around, the company is unveiling a new Xbox today.

It's been eight years since the 360 came out, and back then the big news was how great the games looked. This time around, look for Microsoft to play up pretty much everything else.

"This next Xbox will work very closely with your smartphone to expand your gaming experiences in ways you haven't seen before," says Dan Hsu, editor-in-chief of GamesBeat.com.

Hsu is expecting the new Xbox to have a better 3-D motion-detecting camera built in so people can use the system hands free, and he says it will have some exclusive games, to get an edge over rivals Sony and Nintendo.

But to compete with smartphones and tablets, Microsoft will also have to keep you at your console.

"The more of your friends that are online, connected and playing with you, the less likely you are to switch systems, or head off in search of other forms of entertainment," says Scott Steinberg, head of the consulting firm TechSavvy.

There's no word yet on how much the new Xbox will cost. You can still get the 360 for about $300.

Apple will be in the hot seat on Capitol Hill this morning. Company CEO Tim Cook is expected to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Investigation about how the tech giant dodges taxes on its corporate earnings. It's common among multinational companies, but it's a practice that's coming under close scrutiny.

There are lots of ways companies can avoid paying taxes to the IRS on profits. Apple is pretty familiar with those. So the company is going under the microscope today. Why Apple?

"They're one of the companies with the largest amount of overseas cash given the success of the iPhone," says Michael Knoll, co-director at the center for Tax Law and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Apple has $102 billion in offshore accounts. Experts say the company keeps a growing portion of its profits abroad where tax rates are much lower.
While not commenting on Apple specifically, Robert Pozen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution says the general strategy of keeping foreign earnings abroad is perfectly legal, though arcane.

"There is a consensus that the current system does not make much sense," Pozen says,  "because we're not raising a lot of revenue, and we're keeping lots of money from coming to the U.S."

Apple argues that it already gave more than $6 billion to Uncle Sam last year. And the worry is more taxes would put it at a disadvantage with competitors like Samsung.

Audio Extra: Marketplace's London Bureau Chief Stephen Beard explains Apple's taxes abroad.

If there were a weekly competition for attention in the tech world, New York City would be a clear winner this week. Members of the city's tech scene are still celebrating the announcement that Yahoo will buy the New York City-based blogging service Tumblr.

Andrew Rasiej, chairman of NY Tech Meetup, says the $1.1 billion purchase has a lot of people in the city's start-up community feeling vindicated that Tumblr chose New York as its home, as opposed to Silicon Valley. 

"Any city that has high-quality human capital is able to take advantage of technology in new ways," Rasiej says. "Frankly, New York has the highest concentration of human capital in the world."

Rachel Haot is New York City's Chief Digital Officer and part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Administration. She says the purchase proves what New York boosters have been saying for years.

"[It] shows the momentum of tech growth in New York City, especially with younger demographics and mobile," Haot says. "This is happening in a platform that was grown and cultivated here in New York City."

It’s a nice moment in the sun. But the so-called Silicon Alley still has a long way to go before it commands the kind of cash that Silicon Valley does. 

Tim Cook will address reports that his company pays billions less than it should in U.S. taxes each year at a Tuesday hearing in Washington. According to a report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple avoids the tax payments by shifting profits to subsidiaries in Ireland.

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Microsoft reveals its latest Xbox gaming console today. And the company LG says it's going to show off a flexible 5-inch screen this week which could soon be a normal part of our phones and tablets.

Lindsey Turrentine, editor-in-chief of CNET reviews, joins Marketplace Tech host Ben Johnson to discuss the latest in gadget news.

Did you see the video of the meteor hitting the Moon on Friday? The meteor that NASA thinks weighed less than 100 pounds and was travelling at 56,000 miles per hour? You can check out a video of the event and the big explosion -- which could reportedly be seen with the naked eye.

Things crashing into the moon -- you know, that's how the third Transformers movie starts right? At least that's how the preview starts. Sorry Michael Bay, when it comes to explosions, we'd rather watch the NASA source footage.

Video of ScienceCasts: Bright Explosion on the Moon

 

 

Raised on the South Side, Manzarek brought Chicago sound to L.A.'s beaches with the trailblazing band. He died Monday at age 74.

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In Texas, it may be politically unwise to cross the governor, but some politicians and advocates in the poor Rio Grande Valley are starting to speak out in support of expanding Medicaid. Gov. Rick Perry opposes all parts of Obamacare.

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In Texas, it may be politically unwise to cross the governor, but some politicians and advocates in the poor Rio Grande Valley are starting to speak out in support of expanding Medicaid. Governor Perry opposes all parts of Obamacare.

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The deadly collapse of a textile factory in Bangladesh has heightened awareness about cheap clothes. Many Americans have become used to inexpensive clothing, but the garments are also discarded at a remarkable rate: Billions of pounds of clothing are recycled each year; nearly half is exported.

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The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the tech giant claimed that three key offshore companies were not tax residents of Ireland or the U.S. One of those subsidiaries paid no taxes for the past five years while it reported income totaling $30 billion.

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