JPMorgan Chase – Beesquared

The chief executive of the nation’s biggest bank is sounding off about what he says is holding back the U.S. economy, but he may want to redirect his fire.

Political gridlock, a tax code that sends investment overseas, a lack of investment in infrastructure and stupidity are all to blame, says Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

“The United States of America has to start to focus on policy which is good for all Americans, and that is infrastructure, regulation, taxation, education,” Dimon told reporters on a conference call Friday to discuss the bank’s earnings. “Why you guys don’t write about it every day is completely beyond me. And, like, who cares about fixed-income trading in the last two weeks of June? I mean, seriously.”

Putting aside Dimon’s pique – he seems to have become irritated by the temerity of a reporter who asked about revenue from bond trading, which fell 19 percent from a year earlier despite the bank’s record profitability in the quarter – the problem seems to lie less with the press (which writes all the time about policy) than it does with politicians.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a pledge to rebuild the nation’s crumbling highways and bridges and change the tax code, among other things. He and his party control all three branches of government.

Which is why it’s strange that Trump began his punch list on infrastructure improvements with a push to privatize the nation’s system of directing air traffic.

Speaker Paul Ryan is scrambling to find the votes, which, not surprisingly, fall a few dozen short of a majority, Politico reported on Saturday. Even GOP lawmakers say privatizing the air system gets them nothing in their districts.

Lawmakers from rural states fear that privatization would lead to cutbacks in service to smaller airports. They thought that when the president said rebuilding infrastructure, he meant fixing crumbling roads, decaying bridges and other public works that create jobs.

There may be a need to update air traffic control as well, but it mostly involves installing a system that guides planes via satellite.

“I think fighting over this part of the infrastructure program [air traffic control] slows down progress we can make in getting a larger infrastructure plan in place,” Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas who serves on the committee that oversees the Federal Aviation Administration, told the Washington Examiner.

Meanwhile, a rewrite of the tax code appears to be going nowhere.

Dimon also cited education. The administration is discouraging states from including student performance in science as a priority, despite such coursework counting toward federal standards for student achievement, science teachers say.

To be fair, that comes from science teachers. And Trump is continuing a stance adopted by the Obama administration. But the Obama administration didn’t also abandon a global agreement on climate.

Dimon said it’s “an embarrassment being an American traveling around the world” and listening to the “stupid s*&t” Americans have to deal in connection with the country’s struggle to pass anything in Washington that might expand the economy greater than the one to two percent the US economy is growing at currently.

Dimon may not be alone in his frustration. Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But compared with most Americans, Dimon’s job makes him uniquely able to do something about it. JPMorgan Chase spent nearly $3 million on lobbying last year. (Financial firms overall contributed more than $1.2 billion to congressional campaigns in the most recent elections, more than twice the amount given by any other sector.)

He also serves on the White House Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of 17 top executives who advise the president on business.

Sounding off to reporters generates headlines. But rallying business leaders to back an economic policy that benefits all Americans might be a better place to begin.

Twenty-five years from now China will be a developed nation and home to as many as a quarter of the world’s largest companies.

That’s the assessment from JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon, who surveys some of the geopolitical landscape in his annual letter to shareholders that was published on Wednesday.

The missive, in which Dimon discusses everything from the strength of JPMorgan’s balance sheet and to whether the U.S. needs big banks (safe to say Dimon disagrees with Bernie Sanders on the answer), also includes a review of some of the roughly 100 countries where the nation’s biggest bank does business.

Though Dimon is bullish on China’s prospects, he anticipates some rough patches as the world’s second-largest economy evolves. “Going forward, we do not expect China to enjoy the smooth, steady growth it has had over the past 20 years,” writes Dimon. “Reforming inefficient state-owned enterprises, developing healthy markets… with full transparency and creating a convertible currency where capital can more freely will not be easy.”

China’s economy grew 6.9% in 2015, which was robust compared with the rest of the world but the weakest for China in a quarter century. The effects of the slowdown have reverberated worldwide, especially in emerging markets that are home to many of Beijing’s largest trading partners.

Bank assets as a share of the economy (Source: JPMorgan Chase)

Dimon discusses Brazil, which is battling recession, inflation and political turmoil. Despite those difficulties, the country “has a strong judicial system, many well-run companies, impressive universities, peaceful neighbors and an enormous quantity of natural resources,” reports Dimon.

He also surveys the situation in Argentina, which he notes nearly a century ago had a gross domestic product per person larger than that of France. Though France has since tripled the size of its economy compared with Argentina, the latter “has a highly educated population, a new president who is making bold and intelligent moves, peaceful neighbors and, like Brazil, an abundance of natural resources,” according to Dimon.

Dimon devotes the final three of his 50 pages to a discussion of public policy, including the potential exit of Britain from the European Union. A so-called Brexit could harm the economies of both the U.K. and the EU, he says.

For his part, Dimon would like the EU to forge a political union to match the monetary one it has become. “The [EU] began with a collective resolve to establish a political union and peace after centuries of devastating wars and to create a common market that would result in a better economy and greater prosperity for its citizens,” Dimon writes. “These two goals still exist, and they are still worth striving for.