In a new interview, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon suggested that excessive regulation and bureaucracy are hindering growth in the U.S.
“The whole American public knows. Mind-numbing paperwork, red tape, and bureaucracy — it's making it harder to build homes, to build bridges, to start businesses,” Dimon told Yahoo Finance last week.
The CEO noted that it can take years and dozens of permits to repair a broken bridge. “And that's true for our water, our electrical grids, our bridges, our tunnels, our airports. What the hell's wrong with this can-do American nation?” Dimon said. “That's regulation, bureaucracy, and stupidity. And if we don't fix it, we're relegated to more years of slow growth.”
Dimon made the comments to Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer in a conversation that aired on Yahoo Finance in an episode of “Influencers with Andy Serwer,” a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.
The comments come in the wake of Democratic presidential candidates coming out strongly for more intervention in the economy, with many arguing for the breakup of big corporations, doing away with private health insurance, and calling out Wall Street as a bastion of inequality.
Dimon, the CEO of the biggest bank on Wall Street, has in particular clashed with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Jamie Dimon is the billionaire CEO of a Wall Street bank that was fined $13 billion for mortgage fraud, paid a settlement for bribing foreign officials and received a $416 billion taxpayer bailout. Jamie. Thanks so much for your advice.https://t.co/4uVF9VJ7ev
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 29, 2019
Although Dimon has donated primarily to Democratic candidates for public office throughout his life, he has recently strongly critiqued the populism of leading democrats Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and supported much of how Trump has handled the economy, including his significant tax cut package.
Calder McHugh is an Associate Editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @Calder_McHugh.
Read more:
The jobs report is even worse than it looks in these six sectors
These US industries could take the heaviest hit from new tariffs
There's a gap between jobs and job-seekers, and a housing crisis is making it worse
Streaming boom becomes 'holy grail' for resurgent music industry
Trump's tariffs hit Texas manufacturers, spark fears for the future: Survey
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit.