FULL INTERVIEW: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon on Shifting World Order, Ukraine, Iran and Trade — AC1N

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I was going to say, I like this music show. It's appropriate. Okay, first of all, it's great to be back on stage with you, Jamie, a year later. And I do feel like the bar has been set high after our conversation last year. So let's start right there because last year on the stage, you talked about tectonic plate shifting, both in terms of geopolitics and the global economy. How do you see it now? [00:00:22] Speaker 2: So first of all, welcome, everybody. Thrilled to be here. Those tectonic plates are still shifting. They're still moving. They're still the most important thing that's taking place in the world. They dwarf the short-term economy, and that's the war in Ukraine. And I wish we were more supportive of Ukraine. That's the terrorism in the Middle East. It's now the Iranian war, which I hope settles properly for us. And then you have things like, you know, the huge global deficits, the remilitarization of the world, the restructuring of trade. And those are tectonic plates that may very well affect the future of the free world. And, you know, my eyes on that, that's not about, it's not a forecast about the short-term economy. It's just, I just think it's the most important thing that we all have to roll up our sleeves and worry about, which is, you know, why we started the Security Resiliency Initiative, the American Dream Initiative, to do our part in trying to make sure those things turn out the right way. [00:01:10] Speaker 1: Yeah. And we seem to be potentially poised to be on the cusp of a plan here, a broader ceasefire, maybe potentially even peace plan with Iran. But how has that conflict changed the trajectory? [00:01:21] Speaker 2: You know, not really, because I think last year we spoke about Ukraine. We said, you know, it's the evil access. It's Ukraine, Iran, North Korea. You know, Iran, you know, the other thing, I hear a lot of people, they talk about Iran, they usually mention, or at least some people, it wasn't an imminent threat, it wasn't an imminent threat. No, a threat is when I'm threatening you. They've been killing people, terrorizing people for 47 years. And if you actually think about it, at the end they had proxy wars, they've been doing it not in the Middle East, they've been doing it in the United States. They killed a lot of Americans. They killed a lot of Americans on October 7th in Israel. They killed a lot of people in Africa. And my thought is, why did we put up with it? Why do we even put up with these proxy things? Remember, Ronald Reagan, when Gaddafi, when Gaddafi was doing a bunch of stuff, he didn't, you know, he didn't like pretend to hurt him. He tried to kill him. And Gaddafi backed off. So, you know, next time we should go for the head of the snake, and I may be, and this is obviously hindsight, I hate, you know, crying over spilled milk, maybe we should have done it like 25 years ago, get all the allied nations, get 500,000 troops around Iran and told them this is over. We're not putting up with this stuff anymore because that would have been a better outcome. Because I do agree, Iran having a nuclear weapon may be the biggest threat facing mankind. Because if they have it, so will Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, South Korea, Philippines, Japan, Australia, and then I don't know how you stop real proliferation at that point. [00:02:45] Speaker 1: So in light of this, what does it mean for alliances, not just from a defense standpoint, which we're going to get into more, but also from an economic one? [00:02:51] Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, so the foundation for us, we want to maintain, we should, we must maintain the strongest military in the world. That is the best protection against anything you see today or that you don't see today, and foundational status is the best economy in the world. They kind of go hand in hand. I remind people, you know, if you want to keep the dollar as a reserve currency, you know, if we're not the preeminent military and the preeminent economy in the world in 30 years, we will not be the preeminent reserve currency. They actually go hand in hand. It's not just an economic kind of issue. On the economic side, you know, my view is a little different than you see this administration. I think economic allies are critical. We have a lot of them. We have a huge common interest. We have a common value system. We have a common interest. We should protect each other. So you talk about all this trade stuff with China. The best protection, in my opinion, is that the Western world bring back in the things it needs for security, which we'll talk about in a minute, but that we have economic relationships that are profound. And deep, help our economy and help. I think if we're, this is a little bit of a pipe dream, that we can, we should go to Europe and say, if you do the right things, we'll give you one big, beautiful free trade deal. The right things are the Draghi report. We kind of know what they are. They're struggling. They're literally slowly walking off a cliff over time. And they need our help. And so I want to keep it together. And I put Australia, Philippines, Japan, South Korea in there. So I just think those economic things are critical. And they're being challenged a little bit. Not that all trade is good. It's not. You know, we, there are a lot of flaws in trade, but I'd like to make that stronger, not weaker. And it would be a great geopolitical home run against potential adversaries. Dwarfing all other things. [00:04:32] Speaker 1: And you don't think some of the trade deals that are being struck or starting to roll out or even just this week, negotiations being opened up again for USMCA to get us there? [00:04:40] Speaker 2: I think they could. You know, I just, look, I'd like to see them resolved, finished. You know, it's, you know, it's that we should get them done. Obviously, things that we need to do here, we should do here, which we'll talk about in a second, things where, there's a lot of unfair trade. You know, surprise, surprise. We've gone on for a hundred years. It's not just tariffs. It's, you know, it's limitations. It's regulations, it's cheap loans, it's cheap land, it's cheap subsidies. It's a million different things. Yes, you should counter unfair trade. And tariffs is one way to counter unfair trade, but I think it would be good to get these things to a conclusion. In particular, Canada and Mexico. I mean, we have a huge common interest with Mexico and Canada, and we have one big eco-economic system, which actually is in both or all of our benefits. And so I think that could be hugely beneficial. And remember, Canada has oil, gas, lithium, potash. You know, so there's a good geopolitical reason to do it. [00:05:32] Speaker 1: Yeah. I just, before I move on from this, I just, because you mentioned dollar dominance before, I find myself having a lot of conversations about this trend towards de-dollarization. How do you see it? [00:05:41] Speaker 2: Well, it's not going to happen because, you know, because the reserve currency is not, this is an IQ test. You ready? If, and you can ask anyone in the world, if you can only put all of your money in one country, which one would it be? Well, there's only one that's protected by the Atlantic and the Pacific, the United States military, the rule of law, the ability to own. When we give you a United States dollar, you can do whatever you want with it. You can start a business. You can buy a home. You can send it to Switzerland. You know, you can do all these various things. That's not true in a lot of countries. You're not going to take a, quote, a reserve currency where the government decides what you can do with it, which is with China. You know, China has capital controls. That's basically what that is. And they need them for a whole bunch of different reasons. So as long as we maintain that strength, and I think it does relate to free trade. So China will become more reserve currency. Other countries might, but we will still be the predominant one as long as we maintain the predominant economic position in the world. And that is predicated also of the predominant military position. I was in a country, I don't want to mention the name of it, and they were kind of, they were complaining about America and said, you know, we're so uncertain about America. We've taken our gold out of America. We've put it in our vaults here. And I looked at them and said, you do realize your vaults here can be taken by three armies who aren't that far away. And, you know, that's real politic, folks. That's the world. So the notion that you're secure like that, this nation's secure. And so I think people have to think a little bit differently when we talk about foreign economic relations and, you know, real politics is the only way to do it. Anything short of that, you're making a mistake. [00:07:13] Speaker 1: Okay, so you just mentioned military last year. Very famously here, it went viral. You said, shouldn't be stockpiling Bitcoin, we should be stockpiling bullets. A couple months later, you announced the Security and Resiliency Initiative. [00:07:24] Speaker 2: Yeah. [00:07:25] Speaker 1: Moving very quickly. How's it going? [00:07:26] Speaker 2: It's been fabulous. And, you know, look, if you read what I write and talk, I complain about government a lot. And we should. But I also ask the question, what can we do to help? You know, and we're not unique. We're not the only one. A lot of other people do that kind of thing. But we said, we already finance all these companies that do security resiliency. We defined it very specifically. It's military equipment. It's productive capability. It's APIs, active pharmaceutical ingredients. It's rare earths. It's semiconductors. They could be friend sourced. They don't have to be here as long as they are in a safe environment. It's some of the advanced manufacturing where not having here is a strategic mistake. I go on and on. And so we said, what can we do? And that's this initiative. And it has two big components. One is the $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Well, I think we'll far exceed that. We've got, we've had, and we're doing it not just the United States, by the way, but with a lot of allied nations. And that's drones, military, missiles, companies, spinoffs, investments. We hired Todd Combs, who's an exceptional investor, to make direct investments where people need money to do things which we think are important for resiliency. Resiliency is different to every nation. You know, for Europe, resiliency includes LNG. They do not have their own LNG supply. They've got to get it from us or North Africa. And so, and, but for us, you know, LNG here is not the case. So we look at, we try to be very specific about it. The outpouring has been great. We've hired a lot of dedicated people. We're doing special research. So, you know, which we didn't, we didn't really have, like the rare earth ecosystem, the ship building ecosystem, the API ecosystem, so you can identify where in this very complex chain of stuff that we need intervention to do the right thing. And we're probably going to recommend what I call smart industrial policy. You know, it's reluctant. A lot of my conservative friends, how can you recommend industrial policy? Yes, I don't think government should get involved in a lot of things. It's the only way to solve rare earths, APIs, some of the semiconductor stuff. It could be done where it's not corporations feeding the trough of government. It's got to be consortiums who are doing this to bring stuff back. Rare earths, here's an amazing number. You know how much rare earths we import to the United States of America? Only 200 million. You know, if you quadruple the cost, and there's other stuff we buy which has rare earths in it, so that's not really the only relevant number. If you quadruple the cost, it would mean nothing to the American economy, but we'd be 100% resilient. So if you have to pay more, you know, your car cost might go 100 bucks. You know, and so, and I go on and on and on, but to have a company succeed here, we've got to give them the chance to have economies of scale and build a business. We need competitors in those businesses, and we think there are ways to do it where it's the free market is there, and over time, it's 100% the free market, and, you know, basically, you would have a tariff high enough on rare earths that they cannot come from certain countries, or just a barrier that we will not import rare earths from China. Just plain and simple. It's a unilateral decision to do something like that, and we have to do it quick. It is also true, if you look back, you know, people ask, like, what are we doing? We, all of us, we were asleep with the switch folks. You know, 10 or 15 years ago, the military, the government, businesses should have said we can't rely on potential adversaries for things critical for our security, and so admit it, but if you don't admit mistakes, it's hard to fix them, so, you know, I don't like to cry with spilled milk. In my world, roll up your sleeves, get it done. We don't have much time. Suck it up. Move quickly, and we need a lot of government proper policy to do this right, including, which you all hear about permitting and all the stuff you all know about already. [00:10:57] Speaker 1: Okay, I definitely want to get into that too, but first, just to dig a little deeper on what you just said here, I mean, you are a partner to the government on quite a number of these high-profile deals that we've seen in the name of national security here in recent months. Some of them have been very creative. Some of them have included government equity stakes in the companies as well. I mean, how do you respond to the critics who say the government is picking winners and losers, or this is a slippery slope or it's state capitalism? [00:11:19] Speaker 2: I think there's, you've got to go, there is truth to that, but not in every one. I mean, we should have policy we know works, and I can give you a million examples where I think they shouldn't have done it that way or they could have done it another way. I like the fact of moving quick. I like the fact they're being creative in the Department of War and the Commerce Department and the Treasury Department. That I like, and they'll morph over time, so I'm not terrified over that, but there's a right way to do it, and the right way to do it is to set up a system that's conducive to getting the right stuff done and probably not picking winners and losers. I just don't want to waste your time with that right now. [00:11:51] Speaker 1: All right. You mentioned permitting. What do you want to see more of in terms of that? How much of that is federal? How much of that is being tied up still by state and local municipalities? [00:11:59] Speaker 2: Guys, it's everything. It's bridges and roads and homes and affordable housing. It's bureaucracy. It's woke. It's permitting. It's sewer. It's hookups. It's grids. It is a disgrace. Everyone knows it. Everyone complains about it. Usually when you bring it up, you know, people laugh. That's funny. That Baltimore bridge that got knocked down two years ago, haven't even started it yet. You know, grids, haven't really begun it yet. I say, make America's grids great again. But it's really embarrassing. Oh, I have a great suggestion for the politicians in the room. Ready? I may write an op-ed on this one or you can write it yourselves. Like, good policy is free. Take six months in Congress. Do not raise revenues or cut expenses. Don't do any of that. Don't get involved in that debate. Just change policy that makes things better. Housing policy, which I know French Hill is here. Permitting policy, which you all know about. Local affordable housing policy. Education policy. I think it'll drive growth 1% higher just by doing that. Just by doing that. And we simply don't do it anymore. We simply, we're like Europe. We just layer bureaucratic stupid shit on top of other bureaucratic stupid stuff. And it doesn't work. And it's demoralizing. If you actually analyze these policies, they hurt the lower-income people the most. And so they're all done in the name of good, but they hurt the lower-income people the most. And so I think we have to get our act together and hopefully we'll do it. [00:13:31] Speaker 1: Yeah. I was going to go in a completely different direction, but now I've got to pick up what you're putting down here, Jamie. [00:13:37] Speaker 2: Go for it. [00:13:37] Speaker 1: Affordability, this idea of a K-shaped economy that's continuing to exacerbate here. I know you're leaning in on this too from the bank's perspective. [00:13:44] Speaker 2: And it's affordability again. It's not a, you know, it's affordability. Of course it's affordability. That's a Democrat issue, Republican issue. The question is, how do you get it effectively? You know, and you can have a lot of policies that you think it's making it more affordable. You have less supply. And so, you know, obviously it's a key thing. Just all these other things, you know, you can do them right or you can do them wrong. And we end up in this binary debate about how you do them. But, you know, of course you're making it more affordable. It's not a K-shape, like one part going up and one part going down. What it really is is that the wealth, the top 70% are doing fine. The middle class has gotten bigger and richer. They have, you know, stocks have gone up, home prices have gone up. They feel good. They're traveling. Their confidence is higher than lower income. It's the bottom 30% where if you look at it over time, their income didn't go up for 25 years. And they're not really earning living wages anymore for a whole bunch of reasons I won't go through here. And it used to be if you get up in America and even if you go to 10th grade, you get out, you get in a factory or somewhere, earn a living wage and soon have a family, have a car, have a house. That's not true anymore. And it is incumbent upon all of us to fix that problem. Now, that problem, by the way, we've thrown trillions of dollars at it, Democrats and Republicans, and it didn't work. And those people, by the way, when you talk, and we all talk about problems, they have worse crime, worse schools, less affordable housing, worse food, and there are policies that can fix that. And it's not that they're, so their wages have stagnated. They still have jobs, you know, but they're not, they're not seeing the opportunity and they're angry about it. And then they see governments wasting tremendous sums of money, you know, picking winners or losers. You know, even my Democratic friends, when I ask them, if we gave a, do you believe if we gave a trillion dollars to the federal government, anyone would be better off? It's just not possible. It would end up in all these special interest groups and it would be a big party that they'd give to folks. It's policy. It's education policy. It's housing policy. It's infrastructure policy. It's crime policy. You know, and that stuff works done right and there are a lot of examples, you know, if you read that Fowler's wrote that book when he went to 50 cities, none bigger than Columbus, about, you know, how they're building river walks and bringing in businesses and improving their schools. Good policy works and it's got nothing to do in the most part for Democrat and Republican. It's just good policy. [00:16:06] Speaker 1: Well, we just talked about how J.P. Morgan is looking to enable this on the military and defense side, defense industrial base, you know, industrial policy side. How's the, how's America's biggest bank looking to enable us on the affordability side, on the American dream side? [00:16:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we, you know, I met with the mayor, Mondani, the other day and I said everything I wanted to say but, you know, but one of the things I was saying to you, like, what do we do? Like, what does a bank do? And so, I walked in the front door, we have a big flag in the, if you're in the new headquarters. I salute that flag every morning. I told him, I salute that flag every morning and your parents came here for the same reason my grandparents came here, mostly Greek immigrants who never finished high school for the freedom and justice that this country means. And that if you opened up, if you opened up America's borders, billions of people would move here to be American, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and so we, and so I told him, we bank cities, schools, states, hospitals, countries, mortgages, small business and we do the best we can. We make mistakes, we pay our people well, they all get medical, dental, Pilates, you know, and so we're good citizens. We pay a lot, we take care of people and, you know, policy should be, should be done well. So we announced this other thing called the American Dream Initiative which is mortgages and affordable housing, helping small businesses, financial education, you know, we have a lot of branches in lower income neighborhoods teach people how to save money and how to open accounts, work skills which we've already talked about which should have to be done locally and so we're just doubling down on what we already do and we just set targets for ourselves. Can we do more? And so take small business for example, you know, we bank 7 million, we're going to make it 10. I'm convinced we'll get there. You know, we have to gear up for it. We've got to hire more people, more branches, get more, you know, small business bankers and things like that and out of that, we get a lot of ideas that germinate that work. Sometimes they don't always work and but I just want to point out because it may be the most important thing of all is to reignite the American Dream type thing is is I remind people that the Constitution is a legal document. It's the but the principles on which it's based are the most important thing. Those principles and values are freedom of speech, free religion, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness to them did not mean are you happy? It meant have a purpose. You could be an artist, you could be a farmer, you could be a military officer, you could be a caregiver. It meant to make the world a better place to try to create equal opportunity for people and we don't teach those values anymore and they are the foundation that made this country great and we made and all these schools I mean I've looked at them now you look at some of the colleges and even high schools they don't teach a lot of American history and you could say in America those values are still extraordinary why 4 billion people come here. It doesn't mean we didn't have flaws. I don't know I've read a lot of history I haven't read one country that didn't have flaws not one and of course you should acknowledge them and try to fix them if you can and that's part of the American Dream fixing the bottom 30% lifting up everybody creating equal opportunity I think that would dramatically reduce polarization and anger which you see all over the place and so we're doubling down on that too and we're quite unabashed about it. [00:19:23] Speaker 1: The tax policy piece of this specifically last week Jeff Bezos was on CNBC made a lot of news basically said bottom 50% of Americans should not pay federal income tax government doesn't have a revenue problem it has a spending problem that he'd be potentially more open to paying taxes if it meant the money was actually going towards the greater good here it kind of reminded me a little bit of some of the comments we've heard from you in the past especially when I think about things like you know earned income tax credit [00:19:46] Speaker 2: yeah so first when I saw Jeff doing that I'm saying Jeff God bless you get involved in the debate you know you might not agree with everything you're saying but I like the fact he's saying stuff and he cares enough about our country to actually get on there because a lot of people just simply don't do it or even think about it very much and tax and tax is very complicated okay so I generally agree and if you look at the bottom the hundred thousand they don't pay that much anyway so you've got to be a little careful they're all different types of taxes you know you've got your sales tax and you've got real estate taxes and some drive bad behavior and all that and it all should be kind of looked at I like the earned income tax credit which today is the stands if you're a single parent making $14,000 the government gives you $7 at the end of the year in a check you know some people are entitled to it don't get it if you're if you have no children they give you like $700 I would take that the $14,000 I'd make it $12,000 I'd get rid of the child requirement you're working you get you'll go home with $26,000 if you're two parents you have $52,000 and the reason I like it is because first I think it would pay for itself we know one thing about jobs they create dignity that first rung in the ladder when I hear people making fun of burger flippers a lot of those burger flippers end up owning and running McDonald's they are proud of what they accomplish you know a lot of our forefathers came here and that's what they did when they got here that first rung leads to a second rung jobs lead to the money would go to the person so it's not big big government design whether you can buy potato chips and soda or not they would spend it on their families and their homes they'd spend it locally it might foster local restaurants they might buy more insurance or a tutor for the kids or something like that and it would lift up those economies but it also has the great virtue of bringing people into the workforce making work pay more and we know one thing about jobs better social outcome more household formation less crime less suicide less recidivism so if you actually did the full analysis which is hard to do and we really haven't I guarantee you it would more than pay for itself and that would cost like another 50 billion dollars if they did that yeah I think people would be willing to pay as long as it went to them if it's going to go to Congress to decide who to give it to no one's going to want to pay extra money in taxes [00:21:58] Speaker 1: let's shift gears to monetary policy we've got a new Fed chair Kevin Warsh how do you see this new regime taking shape especially when you have a bond market that according to some investors is pricing in a Warsh effect [00:22:10] Speaker 2: oh yeah I'm not sure that's true so first of all high quality guy experienced knows markets was at the central bank he was at the New York Fed when we were going through the great financial crisis it's a fresh look I think it's good I like his views I mean the Federal Reserve did in fact get involved in a lot of stuff that they should not have in my view and they're independent on monetary policy not independent on regulatory policy and when they did regulatory policy they violated the Constitution there were no cost-benefit studies no analysis no stuff they're supposed to do and you know that was wrong you know and I like Jay Powell too I'm not just saying that when I look at my own institution I often say the same thing you know what in hindsight we shouldn't have done that and so I think they should take a fresh look they were the adults in the town they still are but they're better off looking at the financial system to haul let the OCC do more regularly than the banks reduce all this they were getting into climate and DI and stuff like that we've been adding year after year after year you wouldn't know this rules and regulations on top of rules and regulations I think you can make the system safer and let banks what they're supposed to do make more loans create more liquidity have more intervention in the markets by the people who should do it and the Fed put themselves in a position where they have any kerfuffle they have to do something I think that's a huge mistake so I think he's right about re-looking at that and I think he's right about reducing the size of their balance sheet we had too much QE and we still don't fully know the effect of $10 trillion of borrowing and $8 trillion of QE and I'm not sure those things play out over a year or 12 months even a five year period to reduce the size of the balance sheet he's got to change some of these requirements my view when we talk about regulations is we should talk about better I think you can let banks lend more create more liquidity and make them safer I'd be much tougher in certain rules I'd be much easier in other ones but you know the way it works out there's every rule is important as if it's the only rule that's going to save a bank from failing and so I think he'll do a good job now I don't think it's in the market what he can do because remember he's one person he's walking in a room probably right now there are 12 people at the table they're smart people they're mostly economists and they're going to say you know Kevin we'd like to hear your ideas and let's think about it let's review these things so it's going to take study they're going to take time so there's almost no chance he can actually change anything in six months and he needs the time so in the meantime the environment change that he's entering into you know we have more inflation so we'll see and he's smart he's got to figure out how he wants to navigate the environment and the new Fed governors [00:24:54] Speaker 1: how sticky do you think that inflation is how much does it actually truly put something like rate hikes on the table [00:25:00] Speaker 2: you know when the Fed says data you always got to think of course they're data dependent and you know in some ways they're a fast follower when inflation went up they raised rates you know sometimes they look at what they think future data might be and they can act anticipatory very hard to do but they have done that if the government can spend another trillion dollars they can act in anticipation of that that they think it's going to be another trillion or something like that so I think their inflationary forces out there are more than other people think and I'm not saying it's going to go dramatically up I don't know it is ticking up you can put Iran in there and food health care is going up for us it's going up 10% a year and we think it's going to happen this year and next year by the way but it's you know the remilitarization of the world is kind of inflationary AI spending in the short run is inflationary restructuring of trade fundamentally has an inflationary component restriction of immigration has an inflationary component two trillion dollars of spending you know the economists tell me well no it's two trillion last year it's two trillion this year it's not inflationary I don't agree with that I think that there's a cumulative effect of spending all this money which may have the dime may have been cast that that will cause future inflation in a way we do not understand so the notion that somehow that we spent all this money and it you know it's fine I think we are too comfortable that's true I just so I look at this long list of stuff and obviously oil prices and food prices so I hope it doesn't go up much but you know talking about interest rates the 10 year bond is set by the market it's at 4.5% that may be the right equilibrium rate today based on what people know but remember equilibrium prices and what happens are two different things and if you had inflation at 2% you know the short rate should be 3.5% so the notion you could take the short rate down a lot when inflation is more like 3.5% or 4% I think it could easily hit 4% you know later this year so you know we'll see hopefully it'll be okay and manageable but if you read history books that isn't always the case [00:26:59] Speaker 1: meantime we do have equity markets at record highs you've seen especially the AR parts of the market I think about not to single out a company but the stock has gone parabolic Micron record time hitting a trillion dollar market cap here what does that say about the market versus this AI infrastructure build out [00:27:17] Speaker 2: look I view the market as exuberant and I've seen this before of course exuberance can go on a long time and it's not bad sometimes earnings are up 15-20% this year and a lot of these companies have huge order books so it may be justified but there is also hype in some of the stuff you see hype in other commodities too and then credit spreads are very low so I look at all that as actually a risk so it makes you feel good but if something goes wrong those asset prices can come down interest rates are gravity to asset prices so you know it's a risk I'm not terrified about it we can handle whatever it is we look at risk we look at the range of potential outcomes you can handle it so JP Moore can handle rates at 2% rates at 8% we're not bending our company either one and I give you probabilities of those things which is more of an intellectual exercise than anything else so we'll see [00:28:10] Speaker 1: SpaceX IPO thoughts [00:28:13] Speaker 2: well you know I visited SpaceX it's extraordinary I mean the company you could talk about values and all that but I wish I can't it's extraordinary it's extraordinary what they've done I think it was a hundred launches last year you know they're reusable parts now so the cost per launch the cost per satellite is literally coming down like this so I wish these guys and Blue Origin I wish them the best I mean they're inventing stuff that can you know change humanity for the better [00:28:46] Speaker 1: how do you think it speaks to what we're seeing in terms of the IPO pipeline and also perhaps just what the environment is if it's shifting for companies to go public here when you think about things like changes to methodology for index inclusion and maybe changes to lock up periods and some of the other stuff that's afoot [00:29:04] Speaker 2: in general I put that all in the minor category just so you know I mean you guys are going to buy or not buy you're going to look at that stuff you're going to decide it makes sense I always think corporate governance should be done right and so when you look at some of these things you've got to say which fare to you if you're a buyer or a partner or a miner or an investor in a company how would you treat it but right now markets are wide open you know the M&A markets are booming equity markets are booming but I do remind people you know and debt markets relaying to M&A are booming you know so debt markets there's a certain amount we just constantly refine there's also an amount that's you know episodic because it's based on M&A type of activity but you know ECM is kind of the tip of the spear and if you look at ECM it can close and open pretty quickly I mean I forgot 2022 we had 400 IPOs in America and the next year we had 20 I mean it was as dramatic like that so that is often based on sentiment short-term values you know the specific stocks themselves so [00:30:04] Speaker 1: yeah we're they're flashing the clock on me right now I'm just a little bit longer here just a little bit of a lightning round biggest risk that's not getting enough attention [00:30:13] Speaker 2: to the geopolitics of how the free world how this plays out in the next 20 years [00:30:18] Speaker 1: okay have you given the fact that the bank has moved forward with some crypto products adopting some aspects of blockchain has your opinion about cryptocurrencies changed [00:30:28] Speaker 2: it's not about cryptocurrencies we're one of the biggest users of blockchain I think blockchain we've been talking about for 15 years okay we're still talking about it I do think it'll replace financial market infrastructure we have a JP Morgan deposit coin we can already move money 24-7 but I do think when crypto folks point at the weakness they're right there's a lot of change that can make it better Fedwire could be the Fedwire is five days a week and 10 hours a day it could be why not six days a week 20 hours a day and real-time payments have a huge benefit for people all true cross-border costs too much and we will be part of fixing that and I'm not that worried about stable coins all I've ever said about that if you have them they should have the same rules and regulations as us AML BSA KYC you know insurance you know disclosures liquidity transparency social requirements which we have you know just a level playing field is all we ask and that kind of thing and I do think it'll change some of that stuff not worried about it [00:31:26] Speaker 1: okay deal making you made some news earlier this week when you said that the bank might be acquisitive here to the tune of 10 to 20 billion dollars anything more you want to add [00:31:35] Speaker 2: I'm shocked that people get shocked I just don't understand it we have a lot of excess capital we've always been very clear that we've deployed it in our business I do believe we can do that I can't do it all at once but we earn very good returns and we're going to deploy it serving clients around the world the way we serve clients today in payments and asset management and capital raising of course we should be thinking about acquisitions can you imagine ACO saying absolutely not no chance never do it so you know there's not one in mind but I was thinking this morning about buying you guys Versant you know you look cheap to me and you know not me we would probably pay the talent more than you're paid by them just so you know but yeah there might be something out there but the other thing as a management tool you always get smart just by looking and thinking why are people doing things a lot of people are doing better than us in a lot of areas so when we have our management meetings you can imagine I don't focus on my God we're number one in X I focus on why are we number four in Germany in this why didn't we build Stripe why don't we have a better market making system like Citadel why didn't you know why can't I want Chase UK to be like Revolut which is worth 75 billion dollars can we do that what are our strengths what are our weaknesses and so we should always be and look at acquisitions I love the fact we can do organic growth it's hard banker by banker branch by branch system by system country by country client based by client segment that's what we do and I think we have huge opportunities but you know inorganic which is hard I've done tons in my life but you should always be thinking is there something that can really enhance your businesses [00:33:10] Speaker 1: cockroaches you looking for more [00:33:13] Speaker 2: you're talking about bureaucracy [00:33:14] Speaker 1: oh sure oh cockroaches and credit cockroaches yeah you talked about in terms of private credit but just in general [00:33:21] Speaker 2: I don't think private credit is 1.7 billion bank syndicated leverage line is 1.7 billion high yield is 1.7 billion investment grade is 15 trillion I mean those are 1.7 trillion investment grade is 15 trillion mortgages like 13 trillion it's not systemic I do think when we have a credit cycle because there have been weakening standards in underwriting and transparency and marking I do think you'll see credit perform worse than people expect that's all I don't think it's systemic I think there will be people in private credit and there will probably be people in banks who do far worse than the average that's happened in every credit cycle and then people will be yelling and screaming I think so I'm not worried about it and we bank them we do a lot of business mostly because it's arbitrage related type of stuff which I object to but we do it too for a whole bunch of different reasons and I think when I tell the regulars when you have a lot of arbitrage taking place it should open your eyes and it often leads to problems down the road so I'm not worried about it we'll see [00:34:19] Speaker 1: okay last question I'm not going to ask you about succession I'm not going to ask you about running for public office I'm going to ask you what your legacy is what do you want that to be [00:34:28] Speaker 2: you know look I grew up and I'm sure a lot of people have the same thing where you know the values were have a purpose in life and you know my brother's a teacher my other brother was a physicist my dad was a stockbroker I read Graham and Dodd the big thick one when I was like 17 years old but there was no push but it was also work hard do the best you can make the world a better place don't allow bullies treat them with respect and all I want my legacy at least relating and my family is the most important my country my family is the most important you know that love and respect and what I give and get that's the most important I now have eight grandkids three lovely kids and a wonderful wife and I'm lucky you know and I count my blessings for that my wife would say I don't think her as much as I should but that's number one my country's number two bar none I'm deeply devoted to helping fix these problems whatever it takes kind of thing in my view but for the company I just want that gravestone to say you know when people visit we're better off to that son of a bitch [00:35:32] Speaker 1: Jamie Dimon thank you [00:35:36] Speaker 2: both thank you very much good luck to each and every one of you thank you ladies and gentlemen this concludes our conversation fintech agentic commerce and financial finance