Jamie Dimon on JP Morgan: “We Suck Less”

JP Morgan Chase is in a strong position after buying Bear Stearns for pocket change and bagging America’s biggest retail bank WaMu, as well as having sold their structured investment vehicles to Citigroup and HSBC back in 2004, and pulling back from the mortgage securitization market in 2006, thus avoiding the sting of the subprime crisis. President Jamie Dimon is therefore now cashing in on his amassed credibility capital and postulating heavily on the whole crisis.

Opening a speech at the Harvard Business School with the triumphant legend “We Suck Less”, he goes on to attack Paulson et al for their “institutional sclerosis”, saying they were “unable to make a decision to make this country healthy”. He follows up by trumpeting JP’s prudence – “We cancelled all trips, all travel” – and admits that even he didn’t understand the derivatives that were being traded by his rivals – “CDOs squared? What the hell were we thinking? These things were way too complicated”. Coming from the man who could be Obama’s Treasury Secretary, it’s a comforting admission.

Unlike the wallflower Paulson, a stretch with Dimon as Treasury Secretary promises to be colourful and straight-talking. Among Dimon’s other zingers are saying he hates his competitors and wants them to bleed, telling Citigroup head Vikram Pandit to “stop being such a jerk”, and calling Bank One’s management bullshitters while he was still CEO of the company. His meetings with his inner circle at JP have been described as “Italian family dinners”, all irreverence and whassamaddawhichoos. Change is coming!

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Hot Money | October 15, 2008 9:44AM |