Jamie Dimon

“You should go work for a real bank,” Mr. Dimon taunted a Citigroup banker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, interrupting while the banker was schmoozing clients. Mr. Dimon says he made the comment in jest and is “sorry.” The incident inflamed Citigroup executives, already peeved by what they saw as attempts to poach Citigroup clients by highlighting the bank’s turmoil, said people familiar with the matter. [WSJ]

Go on, try. You can’t, can you? Read more »

“Jamie Dimon doesn’t sleep in one of those foreclosed-upon houses.” Read more »

It would be a “moral disaster” if the United States were to default on its debts and become unable to pay its obligations, Jamie Dimon said at an appearance in Colorado Thursday evening. The U.S. is the financial linchpin of the world, and the economic effects of the U.S. defaulting could be “potentially catastrophic,” he said at a dinner for the University of Colorado Denver Business School. “It will dwarf Lehman,” Dimon said. [HP]

Seriously, won’t happen again. Read more »

If you’ve been keeping up with your HBO original programming schedule, you know that Too Big To Fail, the movie based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 book, airs next Monday evening. Last night was the premiere at the Museum of Modern Art and while the trailers looked promising, in order to make sure none of you wasted any of your precious time or DVR space in the event it wasn’t worth it, I attended to see how things turned out and report back. Warren Buffett did the same, though was initially met with some opposition at the door, in an encounter that went like this:

Door girls: Do you have your ticket?
Buffett: Uh…no…
Door girls: You need your tickets.
Buffett: Oh, uh…we were invited..
[One of Buffett's dates]: This is Warren Buffett.
[The group is seated]

Other people in attendance who did have their tickets, included but were not limited to: George Soros (with a entourage of lady friends), Meredith Whitney in a white pinstriped suit, Becky Quick, Rodgin Cohen, Regis Philbin, Michael Douglas and all the actors from the flick (William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, Billy Crudup, James Woods, Bill Pullman, Evan Handler, Tony Shalhoub, Matthew Modine, Ed Asner), though not all the real life people they portray (Jamie Dimon was getting ready for today’s JPM shareholder meeting in Ohio, Fuld was probably busy plotting his comeback).

The movie condenses Sorkin’s 539 page book into about 90 minutes and traces the slightly tense moments that were 2008 just after Bear Stearns was bought to the day Paulson locked the top bank CEO’s in a room and and forced them to accept his capital injections. William Hurt does a pretty badass Hank– who gets the most screen time by far– having spent a few days fishing with him in preparation for the role (during which one would hope HP described what it was like threatening to send Ken Lewis home in a body bag if he backed out of the Merrill Lynch deal). I liked it, you probably will too.** Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Read more »

“Giving debt relief to people that really need it, that’s what foreclosure is…Homeowners are probably better off going somewhere else, because they get relieved almost 100% of the debt through foreclosure.” [CS via BI]

Jamie Dimon wanted to make the announcement Oprah-style (You get a title change! And you get a title change! And you get a title change!) but there was concern that some employees would pass out from the excitement. Read more »

We’d like to think so. Read more »

Now that Graydon “JPMorgan emerged from the crisis a winner because Jamie Dimon is tall, fit and nice-looking (for a banker)” Carter has been cast in Arbitrage as “the head of an investment bank trying to snap up a firm from a hedge-fund magnate, played by Richard Gere.” [NYP, earlier]

Every single company with treasuries, every insurance fund, every — every requirement that — it will start snowballing. Automatic, you don’t pay your debt, there will be default by ratings agencies. All short-term financing will disappear. I would have hundreds of work streams working around the world protecting our company for that kind of event. [PBS via BI]