“Right now it’s pretty sunny, things are going well. Everyone thinks the Fed can handle this,” Dimon said at a conference on Wednesday. “This hurricane is right there, at the end of the road, it is heading towards us”.
“We don’t know if it’s a small hurricane or Storm Sandy. You better be prepared,” he warned, adding that JPMorgan Chase is preparing for a “non-benign environment” and “poor results.”
Mr. Dimon explained that the economy is “distorted” by inflation. He also worries that the Fed is starting to shrink its bond portfolio, a process known as quantitative tightening, at the same time it raises interest rates.
It’s something the market isn’t prepared for, the JPMorgan Chase CEO said, saying people “will be writing regarding it in the history books for 50 years.”
He also argued that the United States should do more to protect European economies that are hurt by the struggle for oil and gas supplies from Russia.
“We are not taking appropriate measures to protect Europe from what will happen to oil in the short term,” he said.
The remarks from the CEO of America’s largest bank come as the United States grapples with record inflation, a lingering COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted supply chains and new strains on the global economy from to the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The Biden administration and the Fed have been criticized for not acting soon enough to curb inflation.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notably admitted in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that she was “wrong” regarding the path of inflation, following comments she made in 2021 that suggested that it was a ‘small risk’.
