JAMIE DIMON
"Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea. All businesses tend to pass their costs on to their customers."
— JPMorgan Chase CEO on President Obama's proposal to tax large banks as a way to recover expenses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program
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PRINCE WALID BIN TALAL
"I don't threaten those CEOs that I meet, but I told [CEO Vikram Pandit] that really the market gave you two years leeway but now it's time to deliver. 2010 is for him the year to make it or break it, and he has to deliver."
— Citigroup's largest individual shareholder
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MIKE KELLY
"For five months our only capital plan was the receipt of TARP. In February, we were told we didn't qualify. At that point, we were dead."
— CEO of FBOP Corp., explaining to Congress that regulators held up recapitalization of his firm after it was decimated by nearly $900 million in losses from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae investments
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RALPH NADER
"Consumers need an independent agency that will serve their interests without being captured by the financial wheelers and dealers who put gouging for short-term profit before the legitimate interests of consumers."
— Consumer advocate, in a Jan. 19 open letter to Sen. Chris Dodd, imploring him to reconsider a decision to drop the Consumer Financial Protection Agency proposal
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JAMES D'AGOSTINO
"I think it is an outrageous tax. It is a penalty tax on a specific industry, and it is unparalleled in our history as a country."
— Chairman and CEO of Encore Bancshares Inc., on the proposed bank tax
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WILLIAM PIERCE
"You don't have to play 'Where's Waldo' with the president of a small bank."
— President of Monadnock Community Bank, on the difference between large and small banks
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TERRY ZINK
"It was hard to show why my free checking was better than your free checking."
— Executive vice president, Fifth Third Bancorp, on the bank's new focus on premium checking with added services, such as ID-theft monitoring
