We did not anticipate the political fallout from it. We definitely didn't need it and we paid it back the first day we were allowed to.

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.

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.

JPMorgan was already, for the most part. Our businesses at JPMorgan share the same cash-management systems. The commercial bank, the private bank, the retail bank, they all use the branches. The cash-management system moves the money around the world - for global corporations, and for you, the consumer, too.

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

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.

My operating assumption is we will always have very tough competition. And even with some European banks struggling right now, some of them can reemerge - and maybe even stronger.