JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) chairman and chief executive, Jamie Dimon, has upset some of his audience in Davos. He said, during the World Economic Forum, that policymakers have failed to fix many problems after almost five years of the economic crisis, and some of the new rules have made things worse.
Dimon told the heads of various financial institutions and policymakers that they have failed to fix the problems because they were trying to accomplish too much too fast. He urged policymakers to sit down together and fix the problems as soon as possible. Otherwise, the world would waste another five years scapegoating, pointing fingers and thinking that policymakers are working on a better system. He demanded simpler mortgage rules.
Policymakers have said in the past that it was impossible to know if financial firms are sound or risky. Dimon responded to that by saying banks are no more opaque than any other business. Not just banks, all businesses are complex. Policymakers just can’t understand how aircraft engines work either. Dimon also hit regulators for not keeping up with the new regulations.
Despite criticism for policymakers, Dimon did praise the Federal Reserve for jumping to the rescue after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. However, even the Federal Reserve failed to assess the risk of looming mortgage crisis, whch eventually pulled the world into a deep recession.
“Some banks were port in the storm because they were strong and diversified. I’m not just talking aboutJPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), there were lots of them out there who were ports in the storm and helped countries survive,” Dimon said.
Echoing the same sentiments, Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU) chief, Tidjane Thiam, said there has been excesses in the financial crisis that must be fixed. He warned policymakers against shrinking of the financial industry. Without a healthy financial industry, there won’t be any growth and the crisis will continue.
The chief executive of Russia’s VTB Bank, Andrey Kostin, also demanded better regulations and warned that the global economy won’t return to high growth without a proper financial system that provides funds to accelerate growth.
Jamie Dimon said JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) took big risks during the crisis, but managed them carefully. The bank lost about $7.5 billion on London whale trades. Despite the losses, the bank earned record profits.
