Americans have “legitimate frustration” over migration and economic opportunities, “and I agree with them,” said Jamie Dimon, the billionaire chairman and chief executive officer of the world’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase.
In his 2024 annual letter to shareholders. Dimon condemned the nation’s establishment for failing to protect the American dream, economic dynamism, and economic opportunities for ordinary Americans:
From my point of view, our highly charged, emotional and political domestic issues are centered around 1) immigration and lack of border security and 2) the fraying of the American dream, particularly for low-income and rural Americans who feel left behind amid the growing wealth and prosperity of others around them …
I believe that many affected Americans are not angry at hardworking, law-abiding immigrants and, in fact, acknowledge the critical role immigrants continue to play in building this wonderful country. Rather, they are angry that America has not implemented proper border control and immigration policies. It is astounding that many in Congress know what to do and want to do it but are simply unable to pass legislation because of partisan politics. Congress did come close on a few occasions — and I hope they keep trying.
But Dimon does not call for the popular migration cuts and curbs that would incentivize politicians and investors to raise Americans’ wages, boost U.S. innovation, grow worker productivity, and expand corporate trade. Instead, Dimon mumbles about vague “immigration … reforms,” while saying migrants play a “critical role immigrants in building this wonderful country.”
Some so-called reforms — such as the establishment’s 2024 border bill — are intended to worsen the government-delivered inflow of wage-cutting migrants into Americans’ workplaces, communities, and politics.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Washoe Democratic Party Office in Reno, NV, March 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
President Joe Biden’s maximum-migration strategy is enormously profitable in the short run to Dimon and his peers on Wall Street because it force-feeds the economy with more foreign workers, consumers, and renters — even as it also flushes away the wage gains, trade opportunities, productivity, innovation, and prosperity needed by blue collar and white collar Americans and their children.
“If you opened America’s borders to the rest of the world, I have little doubt that hundreds of millions of people would want to move here,” Dimon said.
Regardless of this silence about migration policy, Dimon’s admissions mark a rare moment when establishment leaders are willing to criticize the failed policies pushed by their peers — and to consider why President Donald Trump’s voters beat them in 2016 — and may do so again in 2024.
In January, Dimon told CNBC that Trump’s supporters are not “voting for Trump because of his family values.” He added:
Be honest: He’s kind of right about NATO. Kind of right about immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China … The Democrats have done a pretty good [PR] job with the deplorables hugging onto their Bibles and their beer and their guns. I mean, really like, can we just stop that stuff and actually grow up, and treat other people with respect, and listen to them a little bit?
Dimon’s recognition of elite failure may be intended to position him for a top job in a future Trump White House.
In his recent letter, Dimon wrote:
For over two decades, since 2000, America has grown at an anemic rate of 2%. We should have strived for and achieved 3% growth. Had we done so, GDP per person today would be $16,000 higher, which would, in turn, have paid for better healthcare, childcare, education and other services. Importantly, the best way to handle our excess deficit and debt issues is to maximize economic growth.
“The federal government, regardless of which party is in charge, needs to earn back trust through competence and effective policymaking,” he wrote:
We should be brutally honest about the staggering number of policies, systems and operations that are underperforming: Too many ineffective public schools do not give students the skills they need to land a well-paying job; we have over 25 million uninsured Americans, soaring healthcare costs and too many bad outcomes; we are unable to plan, permit and build infrastructure efficiently; our litigation system is capricious and wasteful; progress on immigration policies and reform is frustrating; lack of efficient mortgage markets and an affordable housing policy keep housing out of reach for many Americans … we have unfunded pension plans and no action on deficit spending, Social Security and Medicare. I’ll stop here. This should be unacceptable to all of us.
Dimon does include some obvious digs at Biden’s combination of political payoffs to progressives and economic giveaways to favored business interests.
JPMorgan Chase & Company Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon testifies at a Senate Banking Committee annual Wall Street oversight hearing, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
“To fix problems, we must first acknowledge them,” he wrote, adding:
Despite decades of government programs and all the moralizing that surrounds them, we have not done a particularly good job lifting up our low-income fellow citizens … this is tearing at the social fabric of America and is among the root causes of the fraying of the American dream.
Dimon’s letter seems to be pushing back against Biden’s progressive takeover of commerce, culture, and capitalism, saying:
The heart and soul of the dynamism of America is human freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free enterprise (capitalism), and the freedom and empowerment brought to us by our democracy through the right to elect our leaders. Free people are at liberty to move around as they see fit, work as they see fit, dream as they see fit, and invest in themselves and in the pursuit of happiness as they see fit. This freedom that people enjoy, accompanied by the freedom of capital, is what drives the dynamism — economic and social — of this great country. … But even in some countries that have some of these rights, a lack of dynamism — often due to bureaucracy, weak institutions and government, and corruption — is palpable and has clearly led to less innovation, lower growth and, in general, a lower standard of living.
Dimon called for reforms of the education sector and urged more taxpayer support for low-income Americans:
The free one is so blindingly obvious that it’s almost embarrassing to propose. Our schools (high schools, community colleges and perhaps even four-year colleges) should take responsibility for outcomes — they should be judged on the quality and income level of the jobs that their graduates and even non-graduates attain.
The second step is related to the first: Get more income to low-paid workers. While this one would cost money, it is to me a complete no-brainer since it is an expansion of an existing program, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which many Democrats and Republicans already agree upon. Today, the EITC supplements low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly with children and people living in rural areas. For example, a single mother with two children earning $9 an hour (approximately $20,000 a year) could receive a tax credit of more than $6,000 at year-end.
Amid his criticism of the establishment, Dimon also endorses many globalist policies, saying:
Ukraine is the front line of democracy. If the war goes badly for Ukraine, you may see the splintering of Pax Americana, which would be a disaster for the whole free world. Ukraine’s struggle is our struggle, and ensuring their victory is ensuring America first.
…
We should also immediately re-enter, if possible, the prior negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Not only is it good for the economy, but it also could be a brilliant, strategic, economic security move — an economic alliance that binds us with 11 other important countries (including Australia, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore and Vietnam). [Emphasis added.]
Dimon did not mention Trump’s popular decision to kill the partnership, which would have moved more jobs out of the United States while moving more foreign workers into the United States.
The globalist-leaning Axios.com site described the document: “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon uses his annual shareholder letter, out Monday morning, to set out a global agenda for what might be called Pugnacious Hegemonic Neoliberalism: Pro-America, pro-military, pro-trade, pro-capitalism, pro-DEI, anti-China.”
Watch — Dimon: Dems Should Be “More Respectful” of Trump Supporters, Negative MAGA Talk Will Hurt Biden
Extraction Migration
Since at least 1990, the federal government has relied on Extraction Migration to grow the economy after allowing investors to move the high-wage manufacturing sector to lower-wage countries.
The migration policy extracts vast amounts of human resources from needy countries. The additional workers, consumers, and renters push up stock values by shrinking Americans‘ wages, subsidizing low-productivity companies, boosting rents, and spiking real estate prices.
The economic policy has pushed many native-born Americans out of careers in a wide variety of business sectors, reduced Americans’ productivity and political clout, slowed high-tech innovation, shrunk trade, crippled civic solidarity, and incentivized government officials and progressives to ignore the rising death rate of discarded Americans.
“Mom I’m fine” Last night I helped two parents get their teenager on fentanyl off the streets. He was not having it and it took time. I sat with the kid and explained we were not going anywhere and he needed to accept help. pic.twitter.com/bRzBIGXq5a
— Kevin Dahlgren 🥾 🥾 (@kevinvdahlgren) April 1, 2024
The policy also sucks jobs and wealth from heartland states by subsidizing coastal investors and government agencies with a flood of low-wage workers, high-occupancy renters, and government-aided consumers. Similar policies have damaged citizens in Canada and the United Kingdom.
The colonialism-like policy has damaged small countries, and has killed hundreds of Americans and thousands of migrants, including many on the taxpayer-funded jungle trail through the Darien Gap in Panama.
