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JP Morgan Chase Sets Profit Record As CEO Complains About Regulation

JP Morgan Chase, the largest American bank, announced record third-quarter profits today of $5.7 billion. Those billions were made even as the bank is still working out the multi-billion dollar “London Whale” trading debacle.

But to hear JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon tell it, regulations are killing his bank. During an appearance in Washington this week, Dimon opined that new regulations — both on the international level and due to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law here in the U.S. — will cost JP Morgan $1 billion per year (compared to quarterly profits of nearly $6 billion). As McClatchy’s Kevin Hall reported:

Dimon said he understands the need for regulation in the wake of crisis.

“But I think government should think twice before it punishes businesses every time something goes wrong,” he said, looking past the scale of what went wrong in the run up to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

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Dimon repeated that he supports much of what’s in the Dodd-Frank Act, the sweeping 2010 revamp of financial regulation that was a response to the crisis, but he took issue with some of its most important provisions. One is regulatory requirements to keep more capital on hand to respond to future crises, which he argued crimps lending and investment.

JP Morgan Chase and Dimon are certainly not alone. The nation’s six biggest banks are enjoying their highest profits since 2006, but that hasn’t stopped bankers from moaning about new regulations, even as the country still recovers from a financial crisis that was largely the result of Wall Street malfeasance.