On today’s financial battlefield, Jamie Dimon is Achilles, standing tall among his bloodied opponents, ready to drag their bodies in triumph.
Is he a hero or a brute?
While so many others have fallen, he has led his company, JPMorgan Chase, to record revenues. The firm today reported profits of $2.7 billion in the second quarter, on revenues of $27.7 billion.
Jamie Dimon
“Throughout this crisis, we have remained committed to doing our part to help bring stability to the communities in which we operate and to the financial system overall,” announced the chairman and CEO.
Dimon knows opportunity when he sees it. Calling him “one of America’s most powerful and outspoken bankers,” The New York Times notes that he is taking advantage of the financial crisis to surge well ahead of his competitors.
The company took $25 billion in federal bailout money last year. Although he initially supported the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, Dimon reportedly chafed at his company being described as a bailed-out bank. JPMorgan repaid its TARP funds ahead of schedule.
In buying out Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, the company extended its reach not only in the financial world, but in Washington.
Now Dimon, a director of the New York Fed, is talking tough to the Treasury Department, opposing tighter supervision of the derivatives market.
The firm has a battery of lobbying firms in Washington, bending the ears of members of Congress about this issue and other regulatory proposals.
“Derivatives didn’t cause the problem,” Dimon told the Economic Times last month. “They helped amplify it. It’s a perfectly legitimate instrument and we are the largest derivative dealer in the world.”
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