JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, a major Democratic donor and a contributor to President Obama’s 2004 Senate run, told Fortune that “American business has added 4 million jobs in the last 24 months,” but he doesn’t think “government had anything to do with it.”
Contrasting his optimism about the American economy with disappointment about the government’s response to the recession, Dimon said that though “we have the royal straight flush,” we’ve “demoralized ourselves.” He considers “the debt-ceiling crisis, the failure to do Simpson-Bowles, [and] what I consider the constant attack on business” to be the three main things that have hamstrung the recovery, “hurt[ing] consumer and business confidence.”
Speaking to a panel on Monday about the prospect of 1 million veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to the work force, Dimon said, “You’re damn straight we could accommodate 1 million [returning troops],” thanks to America’s resilience, but “four years after the crisis, we still haven’t fixed the mortgage market.”
Dimon ridiculed the administration’s boast of having created 4 million jobs — “it should have been 8 million.”