JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Wall Street bankers, regardless of whom they voted for, are “dancing in the street” over President-elect Donald Trump’s win as they anticipate he will loosen stringent regulations across the industry.
“A lot of bankers, they’re like dancing in the street because they’ve had successive years and years of regulations, a lot of which stymied credit,” Dimon said Thursday during the APEC CEO Summit in Peru, according to a Bloomberg video.
The legendary bank boss — who took the helm at JPMorgan Chase in 2006 — criticized years of stringent regulations on the banking sector.
“You could have kept the banks equally safe but had them do more credit,” Dimon said.
He said the average US bank used to hold $100 of deposits for every $100 of loans it made — but now it only lends $65 for every $100 of deposits.
“And if that’s what you want, if for some reason the regulators think they’re geniuses and that’s the best way to run the banking system, so be it,” Dimon said.
He said he suspected the regulators likely did not anticipate the negative effect on credit.
The benefits from more relaxed standards are not limited to bankers, according to Dimon.
“You could talk to any industry and they’ll give you examples of regulation that could be reduced to make it easier for them to do business while keeping the country safe,” he said.
He called rampant regulation in the US “a shame” and said he applauded “any government that says, ‘I’m going to make government more efficient’” — a direct nod to the new Department of Government Efficiency that Trump announced this week.
The president-elect on Tuesday tapped SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead DOGE. Despite the task force’s name — inspired by the “Doge” meme and memecoin — Musk and Ramaswamy will be providing “advice and guidance from outside of Government,” Trump clarified.
“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump wrote.
Musk pitched the idea in August and has vowed he will be able to cut $2 trillion from US government spending.
Dimon said the US is still in an “inflationary environment” that he is “not so optimistic” will fade anytime soon, citing excess amounts of borrowed money still circulating through the system.
He warned Trump will have to take on the “most complicated geopolitical, military, and geoeconomic situation that the world has faced since World War II.”