Jamie Dimon quotes:

The United States has the best, deepest, widest, and most transparent capital markets in the world which give you, the investor, the ability to buy and sell large amounts at very cheap prices. That is a good thing.

If business doesn't thrive, it hurts America. We need improved relations, more collaboration, more thought and more consistency as we go about trying to make sure we have the best country in the world. Not scapegoating and finger-pointing.

The government has the right to change laws and rules and regulations.

I hope the story of 2011 is that America gets its mojo back. You've got to remember that America has the best universities; it's got some of the best businesses. It's got an unbelievable work ethic, rule of law. The story of 2011 will be America blossoming again.

Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.

Walk into a Chase branch and we can give you so much quicker, better and faster. Like Wal-Mart.

If the government wants to do social policy, it should not be done in a quasi-public company. If you have a mortgage guarantee company which is done by the U.S. government, it should be guaranteed by the originators, i.e., the shareholder.

I have gotten disturbed at... some of the Democrats' anti-business behavior, the sentiment, the attacks on work ethic and successful people. I think it's very counter-productive.

Unraveling the euro is a terrible thing. This is a 50-year endeavor to get this continent together and that's a wonderful endeavor.

Prime Minister Modi [Narendra] is strong enough, and he's accomplished much.

It is vital for officials and regulators to have input from people within our businesses who understand the intricacies of how financial markets operate and the consequences of certain policy decisions.

You read constantly that banks are lobbying regulators and elected officials as if this is inappropriate. We don't look at it that way.

You can design a mortgage system that is different without a Fannie and Freddie, but there are principles you have to have, to have a good system.

It's great that people get together and collaborate, talk about the facts and the analysis, all in the interest of having a great financial system.

Capping the size of American banks won't eliminate the needs of big businesses; it will force them to turn to foreign banks that won't face the same restrictions.

Economies of scale are a good thing. If we didn't have them, we'd still be living in tents and eating buffalo.

Scale can create value for shareholders; for consumers, who are beneficiaries of better products, delivered more quickly and at less cost; for the businesses that are our customers; and for the economy as a whole.

You know, the benefit in life is to say, 'Maybe you made a mistake, let's dig deep.

Businesses can be opaque. They are complex. You don't know how aircraft engines work either.

You cannot prove this in real time, but when economists 20 years from now write a book on the recovery, it may well be entitled, 'It could have been much better.'

JP Morgan always has higher capital liquidity, that is partially to make up for mistakes and problems and obviously it's a tough economy. We support an oversight committee, we supported some of the compensation, new compensation rules, though we already follow most of them. We support a lot of it.

I am struck that so many of our leaders in the U.S. forget how strong our country can be.

The real story in housing will be a recovery in the economy that will drive a recovery in housing, When people are working, when there are more jobs, more households forming and people go back to buying cars, they're going to want their apartments and homes. And that's when you'll start to see a recovery in home prices.

When the government gets involved in pricing, I don't think it's the right way to look at a business.

I advise other companies' CEOs, don't fall into the trap where you go, 'Where's the growth? Where's the growth?' Where's the growth?' They feel a tremendous pressure to grow. Well, sometimes you can't grow. Sometimes you don't want to grow. In certain businesses, growth means you either take on bad clients, excess risk, or too much leverage.

While legislation obviously is political, we now have allowed regulation to become politicized, which we believe will likely lead to some bad outcomes.

If the economy grows, housing gets better, quicker.

No one can forecast the economy with certainty.

I've always wanted to help build a better society and build a better company, and I always wanted a healthy, vibrant company, a healthy, vibrant society. We take care of our people, we provide them with opportunity. But I've always believed business is here to serve your clients, your shareholders, your communities. If we do this well, everyone benefits. We have to do a good job for all of them.

You never know exactly how new policies are going to work. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try them.

Don't do anything stupd. And don't waste money. Let everybody else waste money and do stupid things; then we'll buy them.

Just because you have a good hand today doesn't mean it's good tomorrow. And some of the things we're doing may become very disadvantageous at some point.

And if you're going to be a leader, you know what I ask myself? Would I want to work for you in this job? Would I let my children work for you? Would I give you this job if I wasn't there to provide oversight? If you went to run another company, would I, as an investor, invest in that company?

Europe is the most complicated place, in my opinion.

It's hard in all countries. Democracy is hard, but it's better than the alternatives.

The toughest are people mistakes, when you put the wrong person in a job. Sometimes you're too slow to move them out. Or not getting the right people involved to solve a problem, or doing something out of anger; you learn, just don't do that. But I'd have to say the Whale was one of them, and I would also have to put Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual on the list at this point.

We're going to do the right thing for the company and our customers, all things considered.

I wanted to start by saying that the eurozone - there are two reasons they formed the European Union. One is for political peace and rationalization. And I think that's a good thing for a continent that went through hundreds of years of wars.

Remember that banks aren't markets. The market is amoral. The market doesn't care who you are. You're a trade to the market. The market will sell you if they think you're riskier. Banks didn't do that

My daughter asked me when she came home from school, "What's the financial crisis?" and I said, it's something that happens every five to seven years.

Our plate is full. We have a lot to do building our company organically and that is our key focus.

I believe it's a good thing that people say, "Can we find a way to live together in peace?" And they did, for the most part.

We're trying to win business by doing a good job for the clients, as opposed to, "We think being big and universal is just a great, wonderful thing." It's not a morality thing. It's a "Does it work for the client?" thing. Everything we do is because a client uses us. Everything we do is because a client chose to use us of his own free volition.

I'm not going to name anybody, but I think there are about five to 10 global institutions that will emerge as our primary competitors across the board. They're adjusting to this new world, like we are.

We have built a very good company, and we're proud of it. We also recognize that much of it has been built on the shoulders of the thousands of employees and leaders who have worked here before us.

The economic union - creating a big common market, like the United States, so that you can compete across borders. There are common rules, regulations, and simplification, and that is still a good reason, too. When they put their monetary union together, that created a rigidity that made it hard for currency fluctuations. They don't really have a solution to that.

I always tell people, "There's a book on everyone." I get some of that book before I do anything. If I want to deeply understand someone's reputation, I'll talk to their friends, their former bosses, their peers, and I'll learn a lot about them. I want them to be trusted. I want them to be respected. I want them to give a s - -. Then there are the intangibles: physical and emotional stamina, the ability to confront issues. I can ask all I want about those things, but I also have to see a lot of it.

I hate the word universal, because I don't know exactly what it means. The question is, does it work for the client? Travelers was a diversified, financial conglomerate that did very well. The businesses had nothing to do with each other.

I don't mind paying higher taxes, because I've done quite well and I'm blessed to live in this country.

My father and grandfather were stockbrokers, and they would actually take stock certificates from a vault, give it to a runner, and send it to another vault. Then somebody said, "Let's digitize it and have one vault." Now the DTCC clears and settles almost everything, and the cost of doing a trade is a tenth of what it was before.

On Wall Street, there is no "Wall Street"; there are individuals.

Banks don't want certain asset classes, and that's created opportunities for private equity, hedge funds, Silicon Valley. In this case I think he was referring to some of the European banks shedding assets, and the big buyers are probably not going to be big American banks. Someone like Blackstone may have a very good chance to buy those assets, leverage them, borrow up a little bit, and do something good there.

The best thing to do is muddle through and maybe, over time, create a solution of that, if someone really wanted to exit, the legal basis on which you could exit. Because right now there almost doesn't exist one.

JP Morgan always has higher capital liquidity, that is partially to make up for mistakes and problems and obviously its a tough economy. We support an oversight committee, we supported some of the compensation, new compensation rules, though we already follow most of them. We support a lot of it.

I am not embarrassed to be a banker. I am not embarrassed to be in business.

Because of that [Brexit], you're going to have slow growth and, unfortunately, while there may not be huge volatility, there will be volatility.

I also think you have to be very careful. I mean, the heritage of our company is very strong, and building some of these businesses into leading players is extremely tough. You and I can both build a trading business, and it looks like you're doing OK, and it looks like I'm doing OK. But, really, I am, and you aren't. It comes down to the quality of clients, quality of systems, quality of risk controls.

You would expect to see that first in high-yield [debt], but it was in the most liquid thing in the world. So that, I think - it's a little bit of a warning that we've got to be prepared and just be careful.

I don't think you're going to have one bank. Big companies aren't going to give us all their business. So they can pick and choose - by product, by country, whatever. We have major competition across every product in every place we operate.

My guess is the big Chinese banks will be in 100"¯countries by then. They will have very sophisticated operations, and they may very well have bought banks around the world in countries that allow it. I mean, I don't think the American government would allow them to buy JPMorgan. But they will be able to buy a sizable big bank in the U.S. at some point. Whether they do or not, or if it's allowed or not, I don't know.

Let's look at lending, where they're using big data for the credit side. And it's just credit data enhanced, by the way, which we do, too. It's nothing mystical. But they're very good at reducing the pain points. They can underwrite it quicker using - I'm just going to call it big data, for lack of a better term: "Why does it take two weeks? Why can't you do it in 15 minutes?"

Dodd-Frank and independent actions of banks go a long way in terms of progress on capital, liquidity, transparency, "living wills" (plans for winding down a bank in the event of a collapse) and resolutions.

We got a lot of excellent people and businesses from Bear and WaMu. But Bear definitely was more painful. WaMu got us into Florida, California, and other states, which was a huge benefit - to expand and grow and add middle-market, private banking, investment banking, and other products, too.

Look, every institution will make mistakes. I acknowledge we make mistakes, and they can hurt my reputation and our company's. But you also must be willing to let go a little bit, trust others, and not always be so stringent, provided you have robust controls.

I've always been a ... believer in good regulation.

If I ran the whole place like it was my way or the highway, we would not be as good a company. I'm going to have mistakes - they'll be made on my watch and will embarrass me. But I'll also make sure the company learns from them so it can become a better company.

Companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.

Acting like everyone who's been successful is bad and because you're rich you're bad, I don't understand it,

I have gotten disturbed at some of the Democrats' anti-business behavior, the sentiment, the attacks on work ethic and successful people. I think it's very counter-productive.

You cannot prove this in real time, but when economists 20 years from now write a book on the recovery, it may well be entitled, It could have been much better.

A democracy is a compromise by its nature. It's not a dictatorship.

Dodd-Frank is 2,000 pages long. It covers thousands of rules, regulations, interpretations and things like that.

One of the issues with some of these lenders is going to be, where will their provider of credit be when there's a crisis? That's why some of these smarter services, to support their operations, are courting more permanent capital. They want a source of longer-term funding that can survive a crisis.

You've seen certain credit type products that are going to be in nonbanks, like sophisticated CLO [collateralized loan obligation] tranches and stuff where the capital charge is so high that a bank simply will not own it. Someone will buy it, hedge it, trade it. But it won't typically be a bank.

I've asked our people, "Why don't we just put a revolver on top of our basic loan?" Make it easier for the client.

Part of [Japanese companies] growing and expanding around the world is ... going to help the Japanese keep their lifestyles [despite Japan's] demographics, as a declining population, and [to] make it more conducive to women to go to work, I think, is a plus.

If you're making all your money simply betting on interest rates, that's not a business. Flow is a business. On the outside, they look the same for a while. But when you dig into them, no, they weren't exactly the same.

We use technology to make it cheaper, better, and faster for the client. And then if you have the most flow, you can win. Now, having said that, Silicon Valley wants to take on this business. They think they see an opening.

If you look at the banking business over many years, it's always been a huge user of technology. This has been going on my whole life, that people have been adding technology, digitizing services.

We invested in the downturn and we never stopped serving our clients.

The best way to look at any business is from the standpoint of the clients. So there are these certain basic things that aren't going to change. Companies are going to have needs for equity, debt, advice, FX, and derivatives. Individuals are going to have needs for auto loans, mortgages, something that looks like a deposit account, and the ability to send money to people. Those things aren't going to change.

I don't like the term "universal bank." The Chinese government legitimately wants to have a very strong economy. When they talk about SOE reform, they know that's part of it.

If you were a corporation needing financial services, and I can give you something better, faster, and cheaper across 12 products as opposed to eight, that's business. I'm doing it because I'm serving you; I'm not doing it because I want to be universal.

If you can't use dividends, it's not a bad thing to give it back to your shareholders. They'll use it somewhere else.

A bank is a relationship. I can't desert you and expect to have a strong relationship afterward. If I told someone, "I know you've been buying milk from me and you need milk to survive. But the price is no longer $2 a gallon. It's going to be $40 a gallon. I'm going to bankrupt you." What do you guys think of me? You would hate us.

I learn from all our major competitors, whether they're in or out of the U.S. Wells Fargo is very actively, very aggressively, and very successfully building its U.S. investment bank.

Their [American banks] big issue will be if they want to deal with the biggest companies, which are doing a lot of business overseas. How they do that is a big question. It's almost impossible to build a global investment bank from scratch. If they want to do that, they probably will have to do an acquisition.

Companies are returning a lot of money to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. And a lot of people say that's not a good use of capital. I think that's normal reallocation of capital.

Our global corporate investment bank competes with Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and a bunch of other banks that are in those businesses. We may have slightly different products or services, but so what? That's always been true in American business.

Our investment bank looks like it does because its customers like our expansive network and want to do equity, debt, M&A, custody, move money, deposit money, et cetera.

If you have the choice, it's far better to say, "That person has the job, and they really don't need that much of my oversight." Maybe they don't need any of it.

My operating assumption is we will always have very tough competition. And even with some European banks struggling right now, some of them can reemerge - and maybe even stronger.

I think the free-enterprise system has been great for society. That doesn't mean it's completely perfect. And also, when people say capitalism, I'm not really sure what they mean.

When you walk into a store and you want to buy something, you give them cash and they sell it to you. But very often, you walk into our "store" and you want something - a credit card, maybe, or a loan - and very often the answer is "No," even if you're a large corporation.

Banks also have to say no to customers. We can't always give clients what they want; it may not be in the client's best interest.

Not every company went bankrupt. Not every bank needed TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program]. So I'm very proud that JPMorgan, throughout that time period, was completely steadfast. We bought Bear Stearns because we thought we were helping the situation. We didn't cut and run.

I do think there will be more Japanese companies expanding out of Japan, and there will be more cross-border flow from Japan.

Well, if you were the American public, you saw a catastrophe. In general, you would say, "The biggest institutions of America - Washington, broadly, and Wall Street, broadly - they're to blame." And, broadly, they're right.

I haven't studied it deeply, but the American banks started the crisis with far more capital and what I would call "good liquidity." The riskiest funding is unsecured wholesale funding. It's the most fickle. Not repo, which the government focused on, too. Unsecured. JPMorgan Chase had almost none of that - virtually zero.

People need to understand: Businesses are going to make mistakes. They shouldn't be shot and hung every time. We should apologize for it. We should make up for it. My shareholders paid for it. No customer was hurt, which is critical to me. But I hurt my shareholders, and I wish I hadn't.

JPMorgan is a very good franchise. And the way you should look at a franchise, a business, is from the standpoint of the customers.

They [Chinese] have very smart, experienced people. I don't want to paint them all with the same brush. There was a little bit of a feeling that the stock market, which went from something like $4 trillion in valuation to $10 trillion, that the Chinese wanted that.

I think what you've seen them do recently in the markets is what most of us learn doesn't ultimately work. But I think everyone has to figure that on their own.

They'll [China] probably be a fully developed nation. The road there just is not going to be that easy. You're going from a macromanaged, top-down economy to a market-managed, micromanaged type of economy, with all the potential corruption issues, SOE [state-owned enterprise] reform, and market reform that come with it.

I know the President [Barack Obama]. I like him and respect him. That does not mean I agree with all of our government's policies, whether they come from Democrats or Republicans.

Part of the concept of the euro zone was to establish a common market. The banks were going to bank across all their countries like we bank across states. But that concept got killed for a whole bunch of reasons that I won't get into. That was a good concept, by the way. It may yet return, because there are huge economies of scale in banking. That's another thing people don't quite get.

I was a normal human being, but I did like that. I read a lot. I also liked math and science.

Finance went from being a small business, effectively, to being a big business. In part, that's the growth of the world's wealth. That's called savings.

It can take a long time to get the rules in place that are conducive to growing, sometimes.

They have a policy in China for their big companies called "Go abroad." It's a rational thing for both the company and the country to say, "We want big, successful companies." Particularly in areas where they need it: agriculture, energy, technology. I think banking, too. One or two have bought a trading house. Some have already begun expanding around the world. Of course they're going to have those ambitions. Why wouldn't they? They're just doing it methodically. It's a logical strategy and, well-executed, they will succeed.

I think one could argue that there's more political input into the regulatory side, and on the regulatory side there seem to be fewer people with financial and banking experience - there are more lawyers, academics, economists, maybe politicians now.

But in general, as countries get wealthier, there's going to be more savings, which means you're going to have intermediation. So part of it is just the huge growth in wealth, and part of it was globalization - these companies, these clients getting much bigger and much more global.

Japan, Europe, [and] America probably [are] better than last year [2015], not China.

I don't think you could have a banker serving in a major role in Washington in the next 10 years. I just don't think it's going to happen - it's just not politically feasible - so I don't spend much time thinking about it. Do I think I could do a good job? Maybe. It's possible.

Look, in any system, you want highly ethical people who really understand issues to form policies and make tough decisions. You need all the right people in the room. But there's a general view in Washington now by many politicians that if you ever were on this side, you're conflicted for being on that side.

The government isn't going to say, "We're going to regulate banks, but we'll leave these other companies alone." I think the regulators want to make sure that they have some form of regulation on anything systemic. We like our hand. But, you know, honestly, who owns the future?

It might be harder for us to charge a higher interest rate, like they do, so it might not be as profitable for us. But we can either compete or partner, like we've announced with On Deck, which does some of the stuff we just spoke about.

I want you to say to me right from the start, "We are here to serve customers. We're not here for me to make a lot of money. We're not here to bet on interest rates or credit spreads. We are here to serve our customers really well over a long period of time, and that's how you build a successful business." And so I want to see that, too, you know?

I've been regulated my whole life. We have progressive taxes. It's not a free-market free-for-all. I completely understand that society has a perfectly legitimate right to put in structures and regulations and rules that make it fairer, better, cleaner.

If the numbers are right, ICBC [Industrial & Commercial Bank of China], which already earns nearly twice as much as JPMorgan. They'll probably be going a lot faster over time, and one day they can be a lot bigger than us.