The JPMorgan Chase CEO insisted in a New York magazine interview, published on Monday, that people should not blame big banks for the financial crisis.
When asked him about his consistent defense of Wall Street and criticism of financial rules, Dimon pushed back, saying he considered himself more "an outspoken defender of the truth." "This is not the Soviet Union," he continued. "This is the United States of America. That's what I remember. Guess what.... It's a free. Fucking. Country."
Since the financial crisis, Dimon has embraced his role as defender of Wall Street. Earlier this month, he said the larger problem surrounded scapegoating and finger-pointing, rather than systemic problems in his industry.
Here is a big reason the public may be holding Dimon and other big bank CEOs responsible: In 2008, the size and interconnectedness of struggling big banks like JPMorgan Chase threatened to take down the financial system and the economy with it. As a result, big banks, including JPMorgan, received generous bailouts as businesses laid off workers en masse.
Dimon has said in the past that banks should not be too big to fail. But he also has said that some banks need to be big in order to serve their clients well.
He's not the only figure in financial circles with a short temper though. In 2009, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unleashed a slew of f-bombs in an exchange with Neil Barofsky, then the country's bailout watchdog, according to Barofsky's new book Bailout.
"Neil, I have been the most fucking transparent secretary of the Treasury in this country's entire fucking history!" Geithner said at the time, according to Barofsky.
Barofsky has been known to let off the occasional f-bomb himself.
Original Article
Source: huffington post
Author: Bonnie Kavoussi
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