Could he possibly sound so smug if he did? Whatever his substantive merits, no bank CEO consistently sounds like such a prick, so far as I can tell. (Though there is one bank chairman who comes close...). Here's Dimon's latest, by way of today's Wall Street Journal:
J.P. Morgan's chief executive, James Dimon, in particular has insisted that the bank could afford to repay the $25 billion in TARP funds it received last year without raising fresh capital.
Mr. Dimon, who had said J.P. Morgan didn't need the TARP funds in the first place, has expressed frustration with the program. On Monday, when asked by an analyst why the government required J.P. Morgan to raise capital when the bank passed a government-conducted financial "stress test" last month, Mr. Dimon said: "Any argument you can think of, you can assume we made with our regulators. And as you could also expect, they won."
In the Monday conference call, he also said, "We believe we've met all the terms to get out of TARP," in response to an analyst question. "If we don't get out of TARP, we would be very surprised. We don't think we should be surprised."
Not quite as annoying as my favorite Dimon-ism of the last few months, but close.