Widespread anger directed at the media, the political establishment and Wall Street has been a defining theme of the 2016 election. But one of Wall Street’s biggest honchos, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, wants the next president to think carefully about how to respond.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: Yes, tech will kill some jobs. But slowing tech down is the wrong answer.
“There are downsides to flying — people die every now and then. Do you want to stop all air flights?”
Michael Short for Recode
“I hope policies are made not because of populism, but because they’re going to help the people we’re talking about,” Dimon said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. He said he understands why so many people seem to hate big banks like his, but argued that banks still perform an “absolutely necessary” role in society.
So, what would Dimon do if he were in charge?:
- Overhaul immigration. “We are pushing capital and brains out of America today,” he said.
- Expand the earned income tax credit to help “lower-income and underprivileged people, especially in inner cities.”
- Raise the minimum wage, but “not equally everywhere.”
- Deploy relocation, training and income assistance programs to help people who have lost their jobs.
He acknowledged that technology’s rapid and disruptive pace does create problems, but said the solution is to devise programs that will address those problems directly, rather than trying to treat the root cause.
“There are downsides to a lot of things,” he said. “There are downsides to flying — people die every now and then. Do you want to stop all air flights? There are downsides to pharma; sometimes they’re misused. Do you want to stop using pills?”
On the new podcast, Dimon also talked about how JPMorgan Chase is learning from and sometimes cooperating with tech companies. And he discussed why IPOs have seemingly fallen off a cliff in 2016; as the underwriter of many IPOs, Dimon’s company has an interest in getting that number back up.
“For companies that want to go public, there’s a long list of negatives: Painful corporate governance, focus on compensation, public interest groups get involved ...” Dimon said.
“Leaked memos to me,” Swisher added. “I get them all.”
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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