Jamie Dimon said bankers “let the American people down” ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, calling out those who were “greedy, selfish, did the wrong stuff, overpaid themselves and couldn’t give a damn”.
The chief executive of JPMorgan Chase is the only head of a big Wall Street institution whose tenure predates the 2007-2008 financial crisis, that is estimated to have led to 9m job losses in the US. Ten million homeowners also lost their homes.
“I believe there were people . . . who were greedy, selfish, did the wrong stuff, overpaid themselves and couldn’t give a damn. Yes,” Mr Dimon told CBS’s primetime 60 Minutes news show on Sunday night, which averages 11m viewers.
Asked if he was one of those people, he replied “No”, first saying he bore no responsibility for the financial crisis and then saying he would take “some”. “It [the mortgage crisis] was a huge error, it was hugely damaging,” he said. “I think we let the American people down.”
He said he could understand how people felt as a result. “If you’re the average American you’d be angry about what happened, there was no Old Testament justice . . . A lot of people lost their reputation and money but too many people didn’t.”
The 63-year-old also touched on his brush with throat cancer five years ago, describing finding a lump while shaving.
“When someone says to you: you have cancer . . . it’s almost like a punch in the face, the fear,” he said. “The hardest part was telling my family.”
“I just didn’t know how to do it. I said I’m going to tell you something, it’s going to be OK.”
Read also: Interswitch to hire JPMorgan for 2019 IPO
He asked his wife to call his parents — who died of cancer within hours of each other in 2016. “I couldn’t tell them that their son may die before them.” He has been in remission for five years, and said he never considered stepping down from JPMorgan Chase. “I love my job.”
In a section of the interview previewed on Friday, Mr Dimon hit back at US Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who said the banker “and his buddies” should “chip in” to help others succeed since their success is partly built on “the opportunities, workforce, and public services that we all paid for”.
“Anything that vilifies people, I just don’t like . . . We shouldn’t vilify people who worked hard to accomplish things,” Mr Dimon said.
The banker, who frequently pronounces on the US economy and policy, was reported to have been considering entering the presidential race himself. He told 60 Minutes he “thought about thinking about it” and then decided not to.
