“‘I love my country, and maybe one day I’ll serve my country in one capacity or another, but I love what I do.’”
That was the response of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s
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“You know, obviously, it’s crossed my mind because people mention things to you and stuff like that,” said Dimon, attending the bank’s annual Global China Summit in Shanghai, reiterating that for now he’s happy where he is. “I think JPMorgan does a great job of helping Americans and countries around the world, and this is my job.”
The head of Wall Street’s biggest bank recently brushed aside talk of retirement, as a top-flight peer has announced his own exit — Morgan Stanley’s
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With regard to pressing financial-market topics, Dimon, who has mainly but not exclusively donated to and advised Democrats, said that President Joe Biden and lawmakers have done a “great” bipartisan job in getting a debt-ceiling deal together, and that he thinks passage is “going to happen.”
“If I thought if it wasn’t going to happen, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he said in the Shanghai interview. “So obviously it’s got to get through a couple of votes in Congress, and our people are pretty comfortable it will happen.”
A House of Representatives vote on the U.S. debt-ceiling deal is expected later on Wednesday, after narrowly clearing the Rules Committee despite a Freedom Caucus revolt.
Read: Debt-ceiling deal: Here’s what’s next as it passes key hurdle in Congress
He said the bank has for years made clear that a default won’t be good for the financial system or the U.S. economy, which the rest of the world relies on. “I wish one day we’d get rid of the whole debt-ceiling thing,” he said.
Dimon said investors do need to be prepared for perhaps a less smooth ride as the Federal Reserve may not be done with its inflation fight just yet. While the Fed is “right to pause at this point” after 500 basis points’ worth of interest-rate hikes, he said it’s “possible they’re going to raise a little bit more.”
Opinion: Pausing rate hikes would saddle Americans with much higher inflation than the Fed’s 2% target
“Inflation is kind of stickier, and I think people are coming around to that, which means rates may have to go up a little more — people should be a little prepared for that,” he said. “The other thing I think I’d be a little bit prepared for is the volatility that might very well be created by quantitative tightening.
“We’ve never [in the past] really had quantitative easing, which we’ve had now for the better part of 15 years, and now you’re going to see quantitative tightening, and I think the effects may be a little harsher than people expect, but hopefully we’ll get through all that and be OK,” he said.
Dimon touched on the recent regional-bank crisis, saying the banking system is in pretty good shape, with recent results showing “very good numbers” from the regional banks, adding that JPMorgan fully supports the regional institutions. The bank swallowed up First Republic Bank after the California-based lender collapsed.
But he added that the banking sector needs to remain vigilant about the higher rates in light of the role they played in precipitating the recent crisis. “I think we’re over this part of [the crisis] for the most part, but rising rates, if they get high enough, it can rear its ugly head again,” he said.
Separately, Dimon responded to a question at the three-day summit about U.S.-China decoupling, urging both sides to foster “real engagement” over security matters. “You’re not going to fix these things if you are just sitting across the Pacific yelling at each other,” he said, according to Reuters.
“I liked the fact that Janet Yellen, [the] secretary of Treasury; President Biden; the national-security adviser; and secretary of state have been talking about de-risking,” Dimon said in his first visit to the country since 2019.
Read on: How Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy got to yes on their debt-ceiling compromise
