JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: Good Policies Are Free
Jamie Dimon, in an interview with Bloomberg at the 14th JPMorgan Tech Stars conference in London, referred to the next commentary topic as "Good policies are free." He stated that if the U.S. and Europe implement the right policies, they could boost growth by 1 percentage point without spending any money.
He used this statement to oppose large-scale fiscal expansion for output. In the same session, he warned that governments cannot borrow and spend indefinitely. He noted that the U.S. government debt-to-GDP ratio has risen from 50% to 100%. At some point, the market will demand higher compensation, leading to increased corporate credit spreads and crowding out of the private market.
He also described artificial intelligence as both a source of growth and a source of risk. He reiterated his judgment from the chairman's letter that cyberattacks are the biggest risk. After the release of Anthropic's Mythos, he stated that the risk of cyberattacks faced by banks has increased tenfold. He did not frame this as existential panic, but rather as a call to action to address the issue.
The vehicle for this action is the Critical Infrastructure Alliance, an organization initiated by JPMorgan, with founding members including Mastercard, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, AIG, and AT&T. By the end of September, the public list had expanded to nearly 50 companies across about six industries, covering technology, finance, water, and transportation. Leaders from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, and the heads of the eight largest banks in the U.S. are on the list. The alliance aims to identify common vulnerabilities, promote the secure adoption of large models, strengthen open-source code, and formulate policy recommendations for infrastructure resilience.
On the same day, he also discussed the UK's windfall tax on domestic banks. He called this tax unfair and lacking in principles, stating it would raise the cost of capital and have consequences. The official conference account shared a post linking policies, AI growth, and alliance leadership together.
This is not new lending. The speaker is a bank CEO, and the audience consists of tech companies and government officials. The event is driven by the increased cyber risks following the rise in model capabilities and the doubling of debt ratios affecting financing costs. The beneficiaries are large banks and tech companies that can write security investments into industry standards. The pressures are on fiscal authorities that continue to rely on deficits for growth and the mentioned UK bank tax. He defines good policy as growth without increasing the budget.
Source: Public Information
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Dimon has previously included cyber risks in his chairman's letter. In the April 2026 shareholder letter, he discussed the productivity potential of AI alongside manageable risks, stating that the adoption speed would surpass that of electricity and the internet. In July, he used a ballistic missile analogy for unrestricted advanced models. In August, Reuters reported that he personally called to bring bank and tech leaders into the Critical Infrastructure Alliance. October 6 was merely a continuation of this narrative at the tech conference in London.
No new funds have been raised. What has been mobilized is the list of CEOs and industry standards. The alliance was formed in February and by the end of September, membership had nearly quintupled, with JPMorgan's cybersecurity chief still in the executive layer. The motivation is to establish rules through cross-industry information sharing while Washington's legislation lags behind model releases. The 1 percentage point growth he mentioned as free corresponds to less reliance on debt and fewer bank taxes.
This can be compared to the FS-ISAC sharing threat intelligence in the financial industry post-2001, and the Basel Committee creating cross-border banking capital rules. The difference this time is that the list includes chips, cloud, and power systems, not just banks. The industry's position is in the control period before regulation is formed. Mythos has already articulated the risk multiplier, while legislation has not produced similarly swift texts.
Structurally, this represents regulatory change. The mechanism is not for the government to first enact laws, but for the largest banks to pull tech, energy, and transportation companies into the same alliance, then write common vulnerabilities into policy recommendations. The debt ratio rising from 50% to 100% is used to close off fiscal expansion. The windfall tax is described as raising the cost of capital, effectively including the banks' financing prices in the growth formula. The policies are free, but security investments and credit spreads are not cheap.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Stating that policies are free usually means rejecting budget increases.
After a tenfold increase in risk, the list arrives before the bill.
When the debt ratio doubles, pricing power returns to the bond buyers.