Jamie dimon quotes

It takes 10 years to get all the permits to build a bridge today. Ten years? What happened to the good old can-do America? Where is "We get it done, we work together"? We've become this bureaucratic, stifling environment. I'm not talking about violating environmental things - I'm talking about building a bridge, getting things going, getting people to work together.

We have built a very good company, and we're proud of it. We also recognize that much of it has been built on the shoulders of the thousands of employees and leaders who have worked here before us.

We invested in the downturn and we never stopped serving our clients.

If you're making all your money simply betting on interest rates, that's not a business. Flow is a business. On the outside, they look the same for a while. But when you dig into them, no, they weren't exactly the same.

All our clients know that we're there, we're steady, we do a good job, we earn a fair return for ourselves, which I think is critical.

When you leave people behind, and those people who are left behind, it's not their fault, it's the leaders of the institutions. There's always going to be an elite. You can have an elite in a communist society. It is the leaders, something went wrong, and the leaders collectively are responsible.

If you look at Detroit, that mayor, it's been a train wreck for 40 years, the population has gone from 2 million to 700,000. This Mayor comes in, and he talked about streetlights, sanitation, jobs, policing, schools, affordable housing. He's doing it all, and it's growing for the first time in 30 years. Literally, one man. But that one man couldn't do it without business. And business couldn't have done it without a political environment where they wanted to improve things. If you had an antibusiness environment there, it would still be down there.

Companies are returning a lot of money to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. And a lot of people say that's not a good use of capital. I think that's normal reallocation of capital.

If you can't use dividends, it's not a bad thing to give it back to your shareholders. They'll use it somewhere else.

Companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.

I also believe that most of the emerging economies have a fairly large amount of foreign exchange reserves, relative to 10 years ago.

Don't do anything stupd. And don't waste money. Let everybody else waste money and do stupid things; then we'll buy them.

I do believe that some of these regulations made the markets more volatile, and it remains to be seen how bad that can be.

We continued to build the business, even in the worst of times. We do business all over America.

Acting like everyone who's been successful is bad and because you're rich you're bad, I don't understand it.

As a matter of fact 25% of our U.S. investment banking business comes out of our commercial bank. So it's a competitive advantage for both the investment bank - which gets a huge volume of business - and the commercial bank because the commercial bank can walk into a company and say, "Oh, if you need X, Y and Z in Japan or China, we can do that for you."

I don't like the term "universal bank." The Chinese government legitimately wants to have a very strong economy. When they talk about SOE reform, they know that's part of it.

I advise other companies' CEOs, don't fall into the trap where you go, 'Where's the growth? Where's the growth?' Where's the growth?' They feel a tremendous pressure to grow. Well, sometimes you can't grow. Sometimes you don't want to grow. In certain businesses, growth means you either take on bad clients, excess risk, or too much leverage.

I'm not going to name anybody, but I think there are about five to 10 global institutions that will emerge as our primary competitors across the board. They're adjusting to this new world, like we are.

And if you're going to be a leader, you know what I ask myself? Would I want to work for you in this job? Would I let my children work for you? Would I give you this job if I wasn't there to provide oversight? If you went to run another company, would I, as an investor, invest in that company?

I always tell people, "There's a book on everyone." I get some of that book before I do anything. If I want to deeply understand someone's reputation, I'll talk to their friends, their former bosses, their peers, and I'll learn a lot about them. I want them to be trusted. I want them to be respected. I want them to give a s - -. Then there are the intangibles: physical and emotional stamina, the ability to confront issues. I can ask all I want about those things, but I also have to see a lot of it.

People always say to me, "What if it doesn't work?" If it doesn't work, we redouble our effort. We're not going to cry like a bunch of babies. We're going to redouble our effort.

You cannot prove this in real time, but when economists 20 years from now write a book on the recovery, it may well be entitled, It could have been much better.

My father and grandfather were stockbrokers, and they would actually take stock certificates from a vault, give it to a runner, and send it to another vault. Then somebody said, "Let's digitize it and have one vault." Now the DTCC clears and settles almost everything, and the cost of doing a trade is a tenth of what it was before.

The term "too big to fail" must be excised from our vocabulary.

A democracy is a compromise by its nature. It's not a dictatorship.

At Travelers, we were much more opportunistic. It was very successful, but it wasn't an integrated financial services company. We had a property casualty company, a life company, a brokerage company. We were a financial conglomerate. It wasn't a unified, coordinated strategy of any sort. When it merged with Citi, that became a big issue; Citi, at that time, wasn't yet a fully integrated, coordinated company.

I wanted to start by saying that the eurozone - there are two reasons they formed the European Union. One is for political peace and rationalization. And I think that's a good thing for a continent that went through hundreds of years of wars.

I've always wanted to help build a better society and build a better company, and I always wanted a healthy, vibrant company, a healthy, vibrant society. We take care of our people, we provide them with opportunity. But I've always believed business is here to serve your clients, your shareholders, your communities. If we do this well, everyone benefits. We have to do a good job for all of them.

You know, the benefit in life is to say, 'Maybe you made a mistake, let’s dig deep.'

They'll [China] probably be a fully developed nation. The road there just is not going to be that easy. You're going from a macromanaged, top-down economy to a market-managed, micromanaged type of economy, with all the potential corruption issues, SOE [state-owned enterprise] reform, and market reform that come with it.

It's good for America when the rest of the world grows, because you can sell more to the rest of the world.

Prime Minister Modi [Narendra] is strong enough, and he's accomplished much.

We, Americans, have the best country on the planet. We have schools, universities, food, water, energy, peaceful neighbors, low corruption, you name it, deepest and widest capital markets. That doesn't mean we shouldn't identify problems. We don't have a divine right to success.

If you talk to anyone involved in business - forget banks and big business - talk to small businesses - do it yourself, don't ask me - they'll tell you it's crippling. Small-business formation is the lowest it has ever been in a recovery, and it's really for two reasons. One is regulations and the second is access to capital for people starting new businesses.

Let's look at lending, where they're using big data for the credit side. And it's just credit data enhanced, by the way, which we do, too. It's nothing mystical. But they're very good at reducing the pain points. They can underwrite it quicker using - I'm just going to call it big data, for lack of a better term: "Why does it take two weeks? Why can't you do it in 15 minutes?"

If business doesn't thrive, it hurts America. We need improved relations, more collaboration, more thought and more consistency as we go about trying to make sure we have the best country in the world. Not scapegoating and finger-pointing.

Remember that banks aren't markets. The market is amoral. The market doesn't care who you are. You're a trade to the market. The market will sell you if they think you're riskier. Banks didn't do that

We're not fair weather friends. We've been in places for a long, long time.

The real story in housing will be a recovery in the economy that will drive a recovery in housing, When people are working, when there are more jobs, more households forming and people go back to buying cars, they're going to want their apartments and homes. And that's when you'll start to see a recovery in home prices.

Men, age 25 to 55, the labor-force participation rate is down 10%. That's unbelievable. There are 35,000 dying of opioids every year. Seventy percent of kids age 17 to 24 can't get into the US military because of health or education. Obesity, diabetes, reading and writing. Is that the society we wanted? No. We should be working on these things, acknowledge the flaws we have, and come up with solutions. Not Democrat. Not Republican. Not knee-jerk.

It's great that people get together and collaborate, talk about the facts and the analysis, all in the interest of having a great financial system.

We got a lot of excellent people and businesses from Bear and WaMu. But Bear definitely was more painful. WaMu got us into Florida, California, and other states, which was a huge benefit - to expand and grow and add middle-market, private banking, investment banking, and other products, too.

The toughest are people mistakes, when you put the wrong person in a job. Sometimes you're too slow to move them out. Or not getting the right people involved to solve a problem, or doing something out of anger; you learn, just don't do that. But I'd have to say the Whale was one of them, and I would also have to put Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual on the list at this point.

I don't think that [normalization] necessarily is going to damage the emerging economies.

People need to understand: Businesses are going to make mistakes. They shouldn't be shot and hung every time. We should apologize for it. We should make up for it. My shareholders paid for it. No customer was hurt, which is critical to me. But I hurt my shareholders, and I wish I hadn't.

No one has the right to not assume that the business cycle will turn! Every five years or so, you have got to assume that something bad will happen.

I know the President [Barack Obama]. I like him and respect him. That does not mean I agree with all of our government's policies, whether they come from Democrats or Republicans.

If you were a corporation needing financial services, and I can give you something better, faster, and cheaper across 12 products as opposed to eight, that's business. I'm doing it because I'm serving you; I'm not doing it because I want to be universal.

But in general, as countries get wealthier, there's going to be more savings, which means you're going to have intermediation. So part of it is just the huge growth in wealth, and part of it was globalization - these companies, these clients getting much bigger and much more global.

If you went to all those little towns in America, JPMorgan was there in good times and bad times, and, in fact, helped a lot of people through the tough times. And we know that's when they need us the most.

Over the longer term, China will grow by about 6% or 7% per year. The Chinese authorities usually react pretty quickly to unfolding economic events, and you've seen them recently change a whole bunch of policies to be more conducive to growth. They have the power and capability to macromanage the economy - to accomplish their growth objectives - which means they're pretty much going to come close to what they say is going to happen.

On Wall Street, there is no "Wall Street"; there are individuals.

We're diversified, we're stable and consistent. Our businesses benefit from each other.

I also think you have to be very careful. I mean, the heritage of our company is very strong, and building some of these businesses into leading players is extremely tough. You and I can both build a trading business, and it looks like you're doing OK, and it looks like I'm doing OK. But, really, I am, and you aren't. It comes down to the quality of clients, quality of systems, quality of risk controls.

We were a land of opportunity. You can never have equal outcomes, but you can have equal opportunity.

I want Japan to think and say that we are better off for JPMorgan having been here through thick and thin.

When the secretary of treasury, the head of the central bank, the head of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.), and the head of the New York Fed say, "We want you to do this because we think it's in the best interest of the United States of America," you know, we're like the Japanese. We're a little patriotic that way. We said, "Yes, sir!"

You would expect to see that first in high-yield [debt], but it was in the most liquid thing in the world. So that, I think - it's a little bit of a warning that we've got to be prepared and just be careful.

We use technology to make it cheaper, better, and faster for the client. And then if you have the most flow, you can win. Now, having said that, Silicon Valley wants to take on this business. They think they see an opening.

The question is how do you do it [more consumer protection] so that it actually works that way? And that takes analysis, and sometimes collaboration between government and business, to understand how that works.

I am struck that so many of our leaders in the U.S. forget how strong our country can be.

We had a lot of gridlock on a lot of issues. But, the American system is pretty resilient.

I want you to say to me right from the start, "We are here to serve customers. We're not here for me to make a lot of money. We're not here to bet on interest rates or credit spreads. We are here to serve our customers really well over a long period of time, and that's how you build a successful business." And so I want to see that, too, you know?

Economies of scale are a good thing. If we didn't have them, we'd still be living in tents and eating buffalo.

I speak to lots of people around the world, and no one would tell you that 25 basis points will make a difference to them.

When people talk about people being left behind - middle wages have not gone up for years, and we should recognize that, and there I think we need growth and skills - but there are these other people who have been left behind. When I say out loud, "Fifty percent of inner-city schoolkids do not graduate from high school," that is a national catastrophe. We should be ringing the alarm bells. It's not fair.

You can design a mortgage system that is different without a Fannie and Freddie, but there are principles you have to have, to have a good system.

Look, in any system, you want highly ethical people who really understand issues to form policies and make tough decisions. You need all the right people in the room. But there's a general view in Washington now by many politicians that if you ever were on this side, you're conflicted for being on that side.

A bank is a relationship. I can't desert you and expect to have a strong relationship afterward. If I told someone, "I know you've been buying milk from me and you need milk to survive. But the price is no longer $2 a gallon. It's going to be $40 a gallon. I'm going to bankrupt you." What do you guys think of me? You would hate us.

You don't run a business hoping you don't have a recession.

If I ran the whole place like it was my way or the highway, we would not be as good a company. I'm going to have mistakes - they'll be made on my watch and will embarrass me. But I'll also make sure the company learns from them so it can become a better company.

You read constantly that banks are lobbying regulators and elected officials as if this is inappropriate. We don't look at it that way.

We've accommodated the new rules and regulations. We've served our clients and had quite good returns.

I don't mind paying higher taxes, because I've done quite well and I'm blessed to live in this country.

I have gotten disturbed at some of the Democrats' anti-business behavior, the sentiment, the attacks on work ethic and successful people. I think it's very counter-productive.

India is a huge democracy. Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi has ambitions to try to fix the infrastructure, the rules, taxes, education, and to lift up the Indian people. And we're hopeful that that's going to create positive momentum.

The "third arrow" (of structural reform) is critically important. Japan has some of the best companies in the world, and if you look at their technology, their capability, it's extraordinary.

Banks don't want certain asset classes, and that's created opportunities for private equity, hedge funds, Silicon Valley. In this case I think he was referring to some of the European banks shedding assets, and the big buyers are probably not going to be big American banks. Someone like Blackstone may have a very good chance to buy those assets, leverage them, borrow up a little bit, and do something good there.

The yen is trading where it's trading because people are guessing about people's future interest rates, dollar and yen and about the future growth potential of the economies. And, if this policy works, then the yen will probably strengthen.

Europe is the most complicated place, in my opinion.

Well, if you were the American public, you saw a catastrophe. In general, you would say, "The biggest institutions of America - Washington, broadly, and Wall Street, broadly - they're to blame." And, broadly, they're right.

We're trying to win business by doing a good job for the clients, as opposed to, "We think being big and universal is just a great, wonderful thing." It's not a morality thing. It's a "Does it work for the client?" thing. Everything we do is because a client uses us. Everything we do is because a client chose to use us of his own free volition.

Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.

I think if we had another set of policies for - not the crisis years, but after that, that we might be growing faster. But we didn't. And some of that was Republicans' [fault], by the way.

I haven't studied it deeply, but the American banks started the crisis with far more capital and what I would call "good liquidity." The riskiest funding is unsecured wholesale funding. It's the most fickle. Not repo, which the government focused on, too. Unsecured. JPMorgan Chase had almost none of that - virtually zero.

We're going to do the right thing for the company and our customers, all things considered.

My guess is the big Chinese banks will be in 100 countries by then. They will have very sophisticated operations, and they may very well have bought banks around the world in countries that allow it. I mean, I don't think the American government would allow them to buy JPMorgan. But they will be able to buy a sizable big bank in the U.S. at some point. Whether they do or not, or if it's allowed or not, I don't know.

Look, every institution will make mistakes. I acknowledge we make mistakes, and they can hurt my reputation and our company's. But you also must be willing to let go a little bit, trust others, and not always be so stringent, provided you have robust controls.

We do all that [ represent companies], because we have a lot of research in Japanese companies, and that research educates investors around the world. It allows us to sell stocks and bonds in Japanese companies.

Banks also have to say no to customers. We can't always give clients what they want; it may not be in the client's best interest.

I've been regulated my whole life. We have progressive taxes. It's not a free-market free-for-all. I completely understand that society has a perfectly legitimate right to put in structures and regulations and rules that make it fairer, better, cleaner.

I hate the word universal, because I don't know exactly what it means. The question is, does it work for the client? Travelers was a diversified, financial conglomerate that did very well. The businesses had nothing to do with each other.

No one can forecast the economy with certainty.

Wall Street gives money to both [Democrats and Republicans] because they want to be on the good side of whoever becomes president .

I don't think you're going to have one bank. Big companies aren't going to give us all their business. So they can pick and choose - by product, by country, whatever. We have major competition across every product in every place we operate.

I think the free-enterprise system has been great for society. That doesn't mean it's completely perfect. And also, when people say capitalism, I'm not really sure what they mean.

I think immigration has been one of the vital things about the growth of America. I'm the product of grandparents who all immigrated from Greece. I hope eventually we have proper immigration.

I do want the tax system to be efficient and be conducive to growth, which it is not.

Our plate is full. We have a lot to do building our company organically and that is our key focus.

I am not embarrassed to be a banker. I am not embarrassed to be in business.

You never know exactly how new policies are going to work. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try them.

Manipulating currencies is when you're going into the marketplace and buying something in large amounts to depress the value of the currency.

Good regulation should be conducive to business and to customer protection.

JPMorgan is a very good franchise. And the way you should look at a franchise, a business, is from the standpoint of the customers.

JPMorgan Chase are among the most successful global investment banks, most successful global asset managers, and, in the United States, one of the most successful retail and commercial bankers. We do a great job for customers.

We've seen the volatility at dollar-yen, U.S. Treasurys, JGBs (Japanese government bonds), German bunds.

A lot of these things have hurt the average American. When they look at the banks and they say, "Well, the bank's talking its own game," I am telling you, what we've done in mortgage lending, our inability to have proper regulations around mortgages, has hurt average Americans. First-time buyers, immigrant buyers, prior defaults, self-employed, because they can't get a mortgage. Will it make a big difference to JPMorgan Chase? No, but you're hurting my fellow citizens. Let's go at it, and let's fix it.

JP Morgan always has higher capital liquidity, that is partially to make up for mistakes and problems and obviously its a tough economy. We support an oversight committee, we supported some of the compensation, new compensation rules, though we already follow most of them. We support a lot of it.

Most CEOs are patriotic and most CEOs can see the problems in front of them, and they want to do something about it. We don't always agree about the ways and means, but the objective? We're totally together.

Part of the concept of the euro zone was to establish a common market. The banks were going to bank across all their countries like we bank across states. But that concept got killed for a whole bunch of reasons that I won't get into. That was a good concept, by the way. It may yet return, because there are huge economies of scale in banking. That's another thing people don't quite get.

It's offensive to me to be called a cost cutter.

Our commercial bank [JPMorgan] is only in the U.S. We are serving what you call SMEs - small businesses, private companies.

Just because you have a good hand today doesn't mean it's good tomorrow. And some of the things we're doing may become very disadvantageous at some point.

Businesses can be opaque. They are complex. You don't know how aircraft engines work either.

If it is a small rate raises, [there will be] no impact.

It's hard in all countries. Democracy is hard, but it's better than the alternatives.

We've made a huge effort globally and in the US, in getting kids jobs. This is one piece. The South Bronx and inner-city schools need it more than most. It's our hometown; JPMorgan Chase banks a lot of people here. If you see the school, it works. Kids all getting jobs, they're smiling, they're proud of themselves. That's what we need to do in inner-city schools.

I've always been a ... believer in good regulation.

It's an advantage for both parties to have the other. It also creates good stability of earnings. Our business mix means we have a diversified earnings stream, which is one of the things why we got through the tough times so successfully.

I agree with people who say we want more income equality; we want more consumer protection; and we want sounder banks. I agree with all that.

The best thing to do is muddle through and maybe, over time, create a solution of that, if someone really wanted to exit, the legal basis on which you could exit. Because right now there almost doesn't exist one.

We take smaller companies and middle-sized companies, all around the world, and we do currency exchange for them; we raise bonds and equities for them; and we do inventory finance, trade finance, and custody of assets.

The transaction reflects our disciplined strategy of investing capital in core businesses where we can leverage scale and expertise for competitive advantage. In addition to being a great strategic fit, the deal is compelling financially.

My daughter asked me when she came home from school, "What's the financial crisis?" and I said, it's something that happens every five to seven years.