My pitchfork now has a purpose

For days now, I've been standing rather sheepishly amid an angry mob of American taxpayers, awkwardly shifting my pitchfork from hand to hand, unsure what I'm supposed to do with it when I'm not waving it in the air.

Now, at last, I know.

The answer was inadvertently supplied to me by JPMorgan Chase. It's been in the news lately for its plans to spend almost $120 million to buy two new corporate jets and another $18 million to renovate a hangar at Westchester Airport outside New York City.

When ABC News aired a report on JPMorgan Chase's plans, the angry mob of American taxpayers - still fuming over all those bonuses at AIG - began a-grumbling and agitating anew.

The financial giant, you see, received $25 billion in federal bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. And this - this - is the thanks we get? Two fancy new jets and a fancy hangar?

"It's a remarkably boneheaded decision," corporate watchdog Nell Minow told ABC. "It's completely tone deaf."

But the folks at JPMorgan Chase quickly barked back at the watchdog and ABC's riffraff-rousing report. A bank spokesman told The New York Times that the new jets are merely replacing two of JP-Morgan Chase's four existing corporate flying machines.

What's more, the spokesman said, "We will not purchase any replacement plane or make any related expenditure until after we have repaid TARP funds in full."

So, you see, they're not wasting our money. It's a different pile of money entirely. Any display of wretched excess will be postponed until after we taxpayers have been made whole.

Oh, I know: Some of you may wonder if it's possible - in these austere times - that JP-Morgan Chase execs could just retire those older jets and make do with the two jets left in its fleet. And maybe the hangar renovation could be scaled back to a new coat of paint and a potted fern by the window?

Nope.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, is clearly getting weary of all this vox populi stuff.

A couple of weeks before the ABC report, he fought back in a speech at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference. "When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don't understand it," he told the crowd. "I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because it's hurting our country."

Perhaps Mr. Dimon is right. Rather than mocking corporate folks and their jetstream of bonuses and perks and really awful decisions over the past decade or so, perhaps we should pat them on their backs and offer our help.

Here's what I have in mind:

ABC News described the JP-Morgan Chase aircraft, rather redundantly, as "corporate luxury jets" and noted that the hangar will feature quarry tile, reclaimed wood (salvaged from foreclosed homes, perhaps?) and "a vegetated rooftop garden."

The latter caught my eye.

In the spirit of the Obamas, it seems the thrifty folks at JP-Morgan Chase intend to plant vegetables to help stretch our dollars a bit further. Which set me to thinking: Perhaps they could use some help turning their compost pile. My trusty pitchfork and I stand ready.

I'm not asking for much in the way of compensation. Certainly not a seven- or eight-figure salary, with yearly six- or seven-figure bonuses, plus stock options and free, unlimited rides on corporate jets.

No, my plan is much more austere. As it happens, I have a modest credit card balance with

JP-Morgan Chase. I think I could easily pay off my debt with vegetables I help grow on the corporate jet hangar's rooftop garden.

I'm thinking tomatoes. And, out of newfound respect for all that corporate America has done for all of us in recent years, I promise I will not deliver these tomatoes overripe. Or by air.

 Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E-mail him at daryl.lease@pilotonline.com.