Jamie Dimon Quotes

It can take a long time to get the rules in place that are conducive to growing, sometimes.

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

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.

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.

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.

Because of that [Brexit], you're going to have slow growth and, unfortunately, while there may not be huge volatility, there will be volatility.

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.

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

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

Their [American banks] big issue will be if they want to deal with the biggest companies, which are doing a lot of business overseas. How they do that is a big question. It's almost impossible to build a global investment bank from scratch. If they want to do that, they probably will have to do an acquisition.

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'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.

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

The country [India] is doing far better.

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.

As countries get wealthier - all of them, together - you're going to have financial assets. That is a good thing. You could argue the assets were traded too much, or that they're too highly valued, or too leveraged.

I believe it's a good thing that people say, "Can we find a way to live together in peace?" And they did, for the most part.

The government isn't going to say, "We're going to regulate banks, but we'll leave these other companies alone." I think the regulators want to make sure that they have some form of regulation on anything systemic. We like our hand. But, you know, honestly, who owns the future?

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

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

If the economy grows, housing gets better, quicker.

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.

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

I've asked our people, "Why don't we just put a revolver on top of our basic loan?" Make it easier for the client.

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

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.

More people are working, lending is up and savings are up. These are all positive signs for a strengthening economy.

The best way to look at any business is from the standpoint of the clients. So there are these certain basic things that aren't going to change. Companies are going to have needs for equity, debt, advice, FX, and derivatives. Individuals are going to have needs for auto loans, mortgages, something that looks like a deposit account, and the ability to send money to people. Those things aren't going to change.

You have your own culture and your own ways of doing things. I hope Japan continues on this path.

From my point of view, the American financial system - including banks and investment banks - is far safer because of capital and liquidity requirements. Despite all the turbulence so far this year, I don't think anyone's questioning our system. And that, obviously, is a good thing.

We see very broad-based, moderate, growth. Most of the sectors are quite strong. I don't see any major potholes, and I believe [the economy] is strengthening.

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.

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

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

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

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

The goal of what Japan's central bank is doing is to create growth. If it actually creates growth, in the long run, it will lead to appreciation.

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

If the government wants to do social policy, it should not be done in a quasi-public company. If you have a mortgage guarantee company which is done by the U.S. government, it should be guaranteed by the originators, i.e., the shareholder.

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

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.

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?"

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.

There is a lot of focus on that first rate move, and I'm not sure how important that is.

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

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.

Part of [Japanese companies] growing and expanding around the world is ... going to help the Japanese keep their lifestyles [despite Japan's] demographics, as a declining population, and [to] make it more conducive to women to go to work, I think, is a plus.

We don't think there are cases where people were evicted out of homes when they shouldn't have been.