Jamie Dimon Quotes

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.

I think the politics have gotten better in the United States, which makes it easier to pass legislation, budgets and treaties.

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

It might be harder for us to charge a higher interest rate, like they do, so it might not be as profitable for us. But we can either compete or partner, like we've announced with On Deck, which does some of the stuff we just spoke about.

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

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.

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.

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.

I think normalization is a good thing.

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.

I do think there will be more Japanese companies expanding out of Japan, and there will be more cross-border flow from Japan.

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

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.

Unraveling the euro is a terrible thing. This is a 50-year endeavor to get this continent together and that's a wonderful endeavor.

All businesses tend to pass costs onto customers.

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.

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.

They [Chinese] have very smart, experienced people. I don't want to paint them all with the same brush. There was a little bit of a feeling that the stock market, which went from something like $4 trillion in valuation to $10 trillion, that the Chinese wanted that.

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.

The government has the right to change laws and rules and regulations.

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.

Our investment bank looks like it does because its customers like our expansive network and want to do equity, debt, M&A, custody, move money, deposit money, et cetera.

Any good job is a good job. This whole concept of a dead-end job? It's not true. I've heard it my whole life. Jobs lead to dignity. If you're good at the first, then you can get the second. Jobs lead to household formation. Jobs are a better solution for society.

We have a lot of people who are Republicans, a lot of people who are Democrats, and it's not just because of business reasons.

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

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.

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.

If the numbers are right, ICBC [Industrial & Commercial Bank of China], which already earns nearly twice as much as JPMorgan. They'll probably be going a lot faster over time, and one day they can be a lot bigger than us.

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.

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 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.

One of the issues with some of these lenders is going to be, where will their provider of credit be when there's a crisis? That's why some of these smarter services, to support their operations, are courting more permanent capital. They want a source of longer-term funding that can survive a crisis.

[That is] hard to predict, [it] could be either September or December [2016] I personally think the sooner the better because that would be a good sign that the Fed believes the economy is significantly stronger.

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.

Just because we're stupid doesn't mean everybody else was.

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

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

If you look at the banking business over many years, it's always been a huge user of technology. This has been going on my whole life, that people have been adding technology, digitizing services.

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

I am still a Democrat. The main reason is because I don't like the Republican stance on some social values. Not that I disagree with all of them. I just don't think they have a right to impose it upon other people. I've been public about that.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

We represent companies from around the world who say, "I want to look at Japanese companies. I want to invest in Japan."

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