Jamie Dimon isn’t losing sleep over the Occupy Wall Street protests, although the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co. says he understands the frustration with the poor economic recovery among Americans.
On Wednesday, just before delivering the keynote speech at a downtown dinner for the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, Dimon talked with reporters about his perspective on Occupy Wall Street, foreclosures and much more.
Protesters in Seattle on Wednesday targeted Dimon and Chase — which emerged from the recession as the nation’s strongest and most influential large bank. The protesters called on the public to move their accounts en masse to credit unions on Saturday.
Dimon said he can understand their frustration with Wall Street and Washington, D.C.
“They’re right. In general, these big institutions of America let them down,” he said. “That’s not the same thing as to say that every bank was bad, every politician was bad. That’s where I would disagree.”
The chief executive, who considers himself a fiscally conservative Democrat, said that contrary to what some think, big corporations contribute to the economy because they “pay their people more, are more diverse, with health benefits. It isn’t like they’re the bad actors here.”
Still, he recognizes not everyone is benefiting from the economic system.
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