Jamie Dimon Sits down with CNNMoney

does Wall Street can it do anything better to help foster growth JP more always try to do our part to make it better in fact in the crisis we lent money to Californian cities and schools and states and a lot of things by reserve was quite risky and scary at the time to you know help keep people live and grow it so I think a lot of banks are doing the things that make it better and yes of course Wall Street has done some terrible things like other industries that it's been punished for but let's not punish them so much that we don't grow the economy what does the state of your mortgage business really say about the broader US economy we give you a short term in the long run in the short term okay US economy is broad-based going to into an F percent consumers are in better shape the debt service and how much of their income goes to service debt is back to it was in 1985 household formation is going up asset prices going up 401ks are going up small business middle market large companies are in very good shape if you look at American the long term we have exceptional universities we have the best military in the planet we will for a long period of time if the best businesses medium large and small we have unbelievable innovation from Steve Jobs to the factory floor we've got a great work ethic very low corruption we have the greatest military barriers ever built called the eight to call the Atlantic and the Pacific all the food water and energy we ever want we're in pretty good shape you know a converse and says out of respect you know China doesn't have enough food war and energy and they have you know they're surrounded by Russia Pakistan India Vietnam China and North Korea Philippines it's a tough part of the world and even since World War two they've had skirmishes with four or five of those nations they don't have enough food water and energy they don't have a lot of things going for us so we have it we're in really good shape now you said you don't see weakness you don't see you don't see a dark spot in the American economy some people would point to income inequality do you think that's a real issue do you think in-company qualities witness yes I do early on a recovery often income goes to you know the 1% is you know asset prices go up but I would like to talk to what are the solutions to it what should we do about so I I have three very basic ones okay grow the economy more focus on growing the economy get wage pressure and then we'll all be sitting a complaining about too much wage pressure second skills training for an education so both the education inner-city schools and the proper training those kids graduate school they have a certificate that leads to a job and do our college down the road and I love the idea and I heard from both Republicans and Democrats of a better ink Earned Income Tax Credit so being paid to work so it's an incentive and you know I think people prowl and they work so that so that working is a good thing to do as opposed to being paid orphan not to work so and I and they're a bunch of other ideas but I would love people to sit down and round the table so but what will fix this you know it's not gonna fix it the point of people and yell at them and think that they are to blame so you recently became a billionaire what does that mean do you get some like text message to somebody not gonna confirm to deny that and again it doesn't mean that much to me have you gotten the call from Warren Buffett has he asked you to give it away I talk to Warren all the time oh wait I I'm gonna give a lot of it away yes whatever it whatever having me a lot of it away are you gonna sign the pledge I don't know I'm sure I'll do more than 50 percent when all said and done what are your passion projects what are you gonna give it to I have a few but I think my wife will probably the main determinate of that you had a major life-changing event how are you doing I'm doing fine thank you so far so good I get tested all the time how has it changed you at all how does it impacted you it didn't change my value system which I've always literally family first country and humanity second because I and I go hand in hand to me but I think this country still is the leading beacon in the world if you actually travel round the world you feel that way too and you know third is the job but this is the best I can do you know so that if I do well here I can help our employees I help our clients all of our communities and the only real change is that which I think it's just a good life lesson is that I don't necessary my my live for 10 years and you want to live very deliberately like why are you doing this this cause you want to end every day and say that was a good day when you started in the business in the 1980s about 60% of Americans had a favorable view of the finance industry today that number is 37% why sometimes what's it for media I have no idea but I know that we're not going bottom my guess is not that much different a disaster happened to know 9 okay the American public was hurt and you know I think in general they would look at the culprit being kind of some combination of Washington Wall Street in general that was true it was not that every bank was that bad everyone made some kind of mistake and and I think it hurt everyone but you know that one of the things happen in society today is we do that to everybody so if you go way back when we thought doctors lawyers police stockbrokers roll up there and now they're all down here somehow we media somehow we've kind of we've all lost trusting each other which I don't think is a good thing and you know the only thing I can do is a bank is trying to earn it back and so our customer SATs cores never been higher middle market never been happier large corporations like us the country do business on their will like us my best my most important is to satisfy my customer and try to be a great gate great corporate system where every new business and hopefully we'll earn back some of our trust and respect with Austin as the leader of the biggest bank in the u.s. do you feel personally responsible to revive the perception of bankers in this country to make it better to make sure that people like bankers more I can only do my part to earn our trust and respect every day both of our both of our clients and the commuters we do business and with our regulators and the government's we try to you know we have a lot of demands those we make them all happy I can't single-handedly make Americans law banks yes I do I feel responsible do my part as best as I can as long as I'm here yes from the outside Wall Street has potentially a bit of a PR problem from the inside it does seem like an industry under some amount of stress I remember I was a young kid I worked at a consulting company and one of the consultants said I need told me on Friday I need this on my desk on Monday morning nine o'clock and I had to work all weekend I worked all weekend I had this report of research based on their desk and nine o'clock he wasn't there ten o'clock eleven o'clock twelve o'clock 1 o'clock 2 o'clock calls in and basis says oh I didn't really need it today even tomorrow I just want to make sure you got it done I remember telling him I can't say on TV what I told him I was a young kid I remember his name I say I'm never gonna work for you again and the consulting and that's not advice to any young kids out there and they said well you can't tell people you work for they're gonna fire you so I'll fire me I'm not gonna be treated that way I don't think people should be treated that way look we want to treat our people great and oh by art or your kids very high sass action scores they still want to have more weekends off it's very high satisfaction with their bosses and so we do a lot of surveys to try tak tracker or people are doing it's a much more intense industry than it was back in the day everybody made money everybody made money you went to Wall Street you made money and part of it part of the reason that you didn't do it just for the money but the culture is one that attaches a monetary value to self-worth in some ways could that potentially be an issue today with with people working on Wall Street if they're not making enough they're not making as much as they used to there are two things first are they well paid and second of all I don't agree with your concept that somehow you know sometimes some peep I know people around the world to go to work they want to make as much money as they can and maybe there's more of that in Walter than elsewhere but I know a lot of people here who are proud of what they do they work hard than working hard their whole live their good money a lot of people could prior more money elsewhere you know so I just I'm not sure that's complete true that way some say you could have made more money by leaving Wall Street considerably yes I love what I do I wear the jersey this company you know I'm gonna do this as best I can and so I can't you know the money would have means that I shouldn't says but it means absolutely nothing to me you stressed us for everything you said that the Greek one hundred a week everything yeah hundred all the time yeah we invent you one sometimes it's a scare ourselves in how about a Bernie Sanders win have you stress test for that I don't think Bernie's gonna win but but that I'm not that worried about that even became president why you think you can talk him out of breaking up big banks well I think I think is that that's a far more complicated subject you're a company like JPMorgan you know I'm really proud of this company you know when I travel around the world are just in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi and Mumbai and Hong Kong and you know we helped their countries there are people there companies they want us they want more of our capital and our brainpower and and you know we help you know we help some of the these big American multinationals in 30 or 40 countries waste we waste almost two trillion dollars of capital year for big business small business hospitals governments we just did a bond for Peru that's what we do you know and and you need to be a big global bank to do some of that stuff so so you think that you can convince him I would hope so yeah there's more benefit in being a big bank than breaking you need them if you do if you break them up someone else is gonna do and they will be Chinese and if you think that's gonna be good for the future of America I beg to differ stick in politics for a second you supported you contributed to Hillary in 2006 and 2007 why not recently I am NOT getting involved in politics all right now at all at all well you brought the right to do it later but I'm not doing it now after the results come through after 2000 when I feel like it I'll do it why would you ever run for office support a candidate I bring up what the public should know JP Morgan and it's PAC does not support anyone nor has it ever liked what we tell our people here by the way it's listened to both candidates I feel do the opposite if you're a Democrat listen to some of the really smart Republicans if you're a Republican listen to some of the smart Democrats don't just have this knee-jerk reaction all time well you you brought up policy right and so the tax policy has been something that's been debated and you've admitted that it needs to be addressed right yes Trump was one of the candidates actually he was the first Republican candidate to bring up the fact that Wall Street should pay higher taxes do you agree all right look I don't know when you say that okay we pay okay I was actually hongkong than the chief executive on Congress I was talking a bunch of our clients that stuff said by JP more thank you for the taxes you pay we pay a lot of taxes we pay about 30% in cash every year okay so we pay a lot of tax we also pay the FDIC billing a half dollar now your effective tax rate yeah cash our gap and our cash is about the same around 30% it changes year by year so we pay we actually pay that much in cash taxes so but forget banks the issue with corporations is our tax rates the highest in all developed nations we are driving capital overseas at the margin I've always told people in Washington by the time you figure it out the only question is how much damage has been done you forget the right aroma of it you can't have a tax as 10% higher than just about everybody else and think it's gonna be good for the country it can't be good for the country those who have a choice of leaving their capital overseas do building plants overseas doing R&D overseas and you know over here the people say well it's you're not patriotic he's got nothing to with patriotism those are the choices individuals make when they move when they and they do things so we should fix that it doesn't mean that I don't think we shouldn't fix personal taxes - I would eliminate a whole bunch of deductions I'd get rid of that carried interest tax I do a whole bunch of things to be willing to pay more than you person yes here but here's the issue about that I would but you know the American the American public and one thing people says but they're afraid about with washes if you give more money they just suck it down the Leviathan I think that washing owes it to the people say if we spend your money we're going to spend it wisely one of the things that the Federal Reserve is done obviously is hold down interest rates to spur growth if you were Janet Yellen would you have kept interest rates so low for so long you know you look at this as any one of us is easy to sit here and criticize of tough decisions people have made I think that if you look at qe1 and qe2 and qe3 and Lloyds it worked and so did some of the other things that the regulars have done America's recovered the banks are strong we've added 10 million jobs you know asset prices are up the economies are going to two to two and a percentage you can't sit and say it failed she would take a walk around the world it's far worse than other parts of the world you know one point interest rates really low has been really abnormal that probably create some miss allocations the capital people may have to save more money for the retirement normalising is a good thing and the Federal Reserve to me has made it very clear when they raise rates they're normalizing and because the economy strong so I think the sooner we can make that statement the more you can move on I think the low rates at this point probably are causing some uncertainty - so there is certainty created by the start now you know now we're all waiting on tenterhooks for whether it's this month or that month and frankly that's not that important so you know to me that's that's do we got to do but I'll give the exact timing to them you know they look at a lot more data than I do you bring up savers I mean there is an unintended consequence to low interest rates which is Americans aren't earning anything in their bank account yeah there may be more than that someone did do a study and said that if you're saving for retirement the thought is when Rachel oh you'll be incentive to consume versus save there's basic economics but the thought is also that if you're if you're gonna retire and you're looking at investing for retirement you're kind of retiring to a set income level you have to save a lot more to get that income level I'm sure that's true - it's just hard to know where with the full effects of that are I think normalization be a good thing I also think that going back to slightly higher rates is not technically tightening like it was in the old days and people who do reduce reserves and reduce lending type of things it won't have the same kind of effect in this new regulatory environment average American feels like overdraft fees are going up checking account there's no much there's no such thing as free checking anymore and they're putting the money in the bank and they're not earning anything on it do you think that that has an implication for the way banks the perception of the way banks do business companies have to charge people for services provided that's true for everybody so we can get his mind set somehow everything to be giving away for free it's just not going to happen and the we like I said our customers asked what has never been higher I do think it's true that with the earning deposits is very low that's not our fault we Erna is it very low - we have not remember we have not raised or address please it's like you may not notice we limit them we got rid of the new center if it's like a $5 $10 we just we just skip it we try to limit it and you know if you if you have a legitimate reason we all figure I wasn't talking about specifically your business but overdraft fees in the industry have come up the average drink bank accounts are much better deal that's true when people charging for for things now for they lost other revenue streams and debit cards and all that but it's a much better deal to have a bank account and it go into the non-bank and there's some great reports done by reporters that show being non-bank costs twelve hundred fifteen hundred dollars a year in addition to the higher risk by carrying around a lot of cash went on long lines possibly humiliation of it you know to pay $10 a month for bank account you get a debit card you get access to get ATMs so you know people should be a little careful say I'm not gonna do that anymore it makes me angry we think 5 or 10 million people have gone to the non-bank and they're going to even far worse things what did you think in August when the market took a take a hit potentially because of the data coming out of China the disruption that happened in the financial markets over there you know obviously we watching closely but I thought it was an overreaction so I wasn't that worried about it you didn't think oh my god this is the beginning of something bigger I do not do you think that China is potentially or Asia just the Asian economy and not growing enough do you think that potentially could sow the seeds for the next crisis so Asia is growing faster than the rest of the world and China is growing at ten percent for 20 years Plus unlike any other country this planet I think it's unreasonable for people think it's going to grow at a steady pace forever without any ups and downs so what happened this summer you know this dock market I won't go through the detail the intervened a little bit the stock more than three trillion of value to tension your value back to 625 it kind of scared people and but it's telling the world that the China isn't gonna be a study thing anymore they are doing a good job they are very smart they're still moving slowly towards reform so we can argue in America do it faster do it faster but they're they're still doing it slowly to reform I think it's very good for the world if they have a peaceful rising and you know we've got to we've got to think about that so there will be rocky moments this was a speed bump we think they're actually to grow their six percent this year six percent is six hundred billion dollars of growth that's more than most countries in the planet that's a lot more than ten percent was in their economy ten years ago so that's still a very good thing it's slower than people expected but still a huge plus and and you know they have a lot of things to go through modernizing their economy market reform corruption reform having a much broader democracy there's no developed plan in the nation it's not a democracy those are going to be tough times for them but I think they can get through it and the likely outcome is you know 20 or 25 years from now they'll have their little house can house twenty percent of the fortune 2,000 we have a short termism problem right yeah people want to see results you know you you talk to investors you talk to shareholders they don't want to receive results twenty years from now and they want to see results tomorrow or they do that I don't I've never made a decision this company based on short-term numbers or something you have never but to say there's don't and maybe some dudes I always heard CEOs you know don't forecast your quarterly earnings don't put pressure yourself to do something because any there any court a lot of you can't just ignore that no just put borders on it yeah you can that's not blinders to I think you should be transparent tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth but you know like I told our investors we talked about we might have fifty seven billion of expenses this year and so instead you're gonna meet that commitment I said - yes but we have an opportunity spend another billion dollars more as good for my shows we're gonna do it I'm not going to keep myself to a stupid commit so it's not these aren't commitments they I believe in the transparency and if CEOs or make profits or basement most coming of donor last five ten fifteen years or in the oil business probably thirty or four years and you can affect it in the short run only by cutting your marketing budget or or doing things you shouldn't do and not opening 100 new branches by open so we open them like in the in the downturn oh nine we upped ours marking his credit card spending we never stopped opening brands or hiring people that's part of what you know he's been driving results today it's good we're gaining share because we made those decisions in bad times it went very easy to say cut back on all that and show another you know billion dollars of profit and we're just not gonna do it we're gonna build the systems the people the training and all the things we have to do that makes it's a great company for the long run and I should also point out we've been steadfast we don't go in and out all the time so every country and every client we try to be there and good times and bad times we don't cut and run we don't hide and we try to do the right thing and the toughest times you know we will really be there for people

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Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2015