As JPMorgan Chase continues to gobble up regional banks like Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank, its CEO Jamie Dimon admitted that their longstanding policy of refusing to lend money will continue. According to Zero Hedge, in “JPM CEO Says ‘System Is Very, Very Sound,’ After Second Largest U.S. Bank Failure in History,” Jamie Dimon told investors during a call on Monday, May 1, that, “we are clearly going to see some reduction in bank lending.” Zero Hedge’s analysis of Dimon’s statement implied that JPMorgan will be doing “God’s work” for the Federal Reserve “by contracting credit without the need for rate-hikes.”
In that call, Dimon also told investors, “We need large, successful banks in the largest economy.” Perhaps indicating their strategy to consolidate control over the U.S. banking system to become “large” and “successful,” Dimon told investors that JPMorgan will continue to “support community banks” and that “banks will consolidate.” In a pithy analysis of JPMorgan’s intentions, Zero Hedge said that of course these moves will continue, “once the banks are pushed into FDIC hands and assets scooped up by JPM with govt bankstops...” Zero Hedge then translates that to mean: “We [JPMorgan] will wait for the bank run (thanks Fed for the hike to 5.25%) to cripple them all, then buy them all for cents on the dollar with the FDIC keeping the toxic crap.”
