Take that to the bank!
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon went on an epic rant Friday that sounded more like a stump speech — ripping Washington bureaucrats for their chronic dysfunction and infuriating inability to get anything done.
“It’s almost an embarrassment being an American citizen traveling around the world and listening to the stupid s–t we have to deal with in this country,” a clearly frustrated Dimon said in response to a question during an earnings call with analysts.
“Since the Great Recession, which is now eight years old, we’ve been growing at 1.5 to 2 percent in spite of stupidity and political gridlock, because the American business sector is powerful and strong,” he said, banging his hand on the table for emphasis.
“What I’m saying is it would be much stronger growth had we made intelligent decisions and were there not gridlock.”
He also painted a dismal portrait of life in America under the slow growth economy of the past nine years. “People wake up in the morning, they want to feed their kids, they want to buy a home, they want to do things, the same with American businesses,” he said. “I’m going to be a broken record until this gets done. We are unable to build bridges, we’re unable to build airports, our inner-city school kids are not graduating.”
He also railed about what he said was government’s overregulation of the banking industry, which he argued was slowing economic growth.
“The counter-factual [relaxation of rules] would have been that a trillion dollars or 2 trillion would have been lent out had these rules been changed five years ago,” he said. “There’s a false notion that all this stuff didn’t hold back the economy. Yes, it did.”
Gridlock in DC has not lessened even after the GOP captured the White House and both houses of Congress.
The Republican-controlled Congress and Trump administration have been unable to score any major legislative victories on health care, tax reform or infrastructure.
Other countries, he said, are doing a far better job.
“I was just in France, I was recently in Argentina, I was in Israel, I was in Ireland. We met with the prime minister of India and China,” he said.
“It’s amazing to me that every single one of those countries understands that practical policies to promote business and growth is good for the average citizens of those countries, for jobs and wages, and that somehow this great American free-enterprise system, we no longer get it.”
One of the main problems, he added, was excessive corporate taxes. “We’ve been driving capital earnings overseas, which is why there’s $2 trillion overseas benefiting all these other countries,” Dimon said.
But despite the diatribe, Dimon said not all hope is lost if Trump and Congress can get their act together.
“I don’t buy the argument that we’re relegated to this forever. We’re not if this administration can make breakthroughs in taxes and infrastructure, regulatory reform,” he said.