Shadowing Practice: Extended interview: Jamie Dimon on AI, Iran and more - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Gene, thank you for doing this.
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Gene Fletcher, Ph.D.: Yeah, thrilled to be here.
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Gene Fletcher, Ph.D.: You've been writing for many years about the American dream and its troubles.
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It's fraying, it's struggling.
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What happened?
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Gene Fletcher, Ph.D.: Yeah.
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Well, first, put it in context.
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We have the most prosperous nation the world's ever seen.
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Decade after decade, almost everyone's done better.
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However, in like the last 20 or 30 years, if you look at, you know, just the fact like the lower third income is, and it's really there it was focused on,
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the incomes didn't really go up very much.
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they struggle more if they if you live in inner cities
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or a certain rural areas your schools aren't very good i
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tell a lot of people here you don't go home
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and worry about crime you don't worry about your kids schools
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but then they do and it means they don't leave the lower third
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because you know we we do polling at cbs
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and you know three out of four people say it's harder today to raise a family buy a home
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and find a good job yeah no i think
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that may be true i shouldn't say only the bottom third
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there's maybe part of the middle uh income segment too so uh but all those those things are fixable.
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I mean, one of the things I talk about is
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that we had growth in our country is 2% a year for the last 20 years.
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Had it been 3%, we've had 20,000 per person more GDP.
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That would have paid for an awful lot.
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Why was it only 2%?
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And I think we have tons of bad policy that we made it worse for growth in America.
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And growth is what creates everything, capital formation, capital R&D, investment productivity.
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So if you go to like these inner city schools, They're not teaching kids skills that give them a good paying job.
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And there are solutions to most of this.
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But I think it's a wide variety of things that we got wrong.
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Well, you mentioned capital and growth.
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There was polling recently that finds only about half the country even has the positive view of capitalism.
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And more than a third of people have a positive view of socialism.
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Do you understand why?
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I'm not sure I do.
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I just think it's dead wrong.
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And the fact is capitalism has lifted millions of people out of poverty.
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like a lot of things that may have flaws.
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I think I hear a lot of people sometimes talk about the flaws of capitalism.
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I realize they're talking about the flaws of human beings.
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Some people are selfish, some are self-centered, some are this, some of that.
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That's true in a communist society or a capitalist society.
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Some businesses do bad things, and that's not because of capitalism.
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And so, you know, we try to have laws and regulations that get the best out of people and, you know, get the worst.
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But we've been educating people over and over that things are bad.
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And if you look at them, they're not bad.
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They're living longer.
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Everyone's got air conditioning.
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Cars are safer.
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But I do think it's become much more of a struggle.
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And so we really should focus on that.
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I always ask the question, why?
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Well, why are inner city schools failing the kids?
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You could say real estate taxes because they don't have the same taxes to pay for the better schools.
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How come these schools, like the Aviation High School across the 593 bridge here, these kids graduate at 17 or 18, making $75,000 a year?
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Because they were given skills to maintain their sedan aircraft.
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But for a lot of people, it's about how much money they're making.
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Can they go on vacation every year?
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Can they expect a better future for their kids?
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Can they expect a retirement with decency?
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Can they own a home?
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These are the core components.
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When I talk to regular people, we travel all over the country, and you talk to regular people about someone like yourself, a business like this one, doing really well.
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The real simple question they have is, why couldn't a business like this just take a little less so that other people have it a little bit easier?
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I don't think that would solve the problem at all.
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And, you know, we don't, we don't even try to earn a fair return on our capital.
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We're not trying to take anything with anybody.
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I think it would solve the problem as we build more affordable housing.
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The reason we're not building more affordable housing is because local zoning requirements and mortgage origination, mortgage rules that made it so expensive to get a mortgage, we could reduce the cost of that mortgage.
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I think the way you fix the problem is by fixing the city schools.
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We already spend a trillion dollars or something like that on K-12.
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You should be asking this question, the trillion dollars.
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Why can't it work better?
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So my view is these programs failed.
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So why can't we build programs that don't fail?
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So if the answer to that, why can't we?
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It's policy.
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And I think good policy is free.
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Is it policy or is it politics?
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That's a good question.
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I mean, you'd be more of an expert in politics.
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Definitely not.
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But I make a list of bad policies like schools.
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I think we should double the income tax credit.
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So if you're making $14,000 a year with two children, the government gives you $6,000 or $7,000 at the end of the year.
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I would make a 10, I'd get rid of the child requirement.
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So if you're a couple, you're both working, at a minimum you're making $48,000 a year, and it has the virtue of going into their communities by helping schools,
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get the tutors, maybe buy some more health insurance, the dignity of a job, the first job leads to a second job, and it's got much better social outcomes,
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more families, less recidivism, less crime, less drugs, less suicide.
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So we have a lot to do to fix parts of our society.
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We should get at it and roll up our sleeves and acknowledge what the problems are and fix them.
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Steve Adubatois How does this initiative that you're announcing today solve it?
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Dr. Tom Hanks Yeah.
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So we've always done ...
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We think our job is to finance society, small businesses, large businesses, individuals, home ownership.
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We're more of the biggest in the country across the full spectrum.
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But we ask our own people, And when we have the problem, I always ask, okay, got it.
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What are you going to do?
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And so we ask the people around the Euphraim, American Dream, what can we do more?
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And we have that long-lived small business.
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We're going to go from banking $7 million to $10 million.
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We have our small business consultants.
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So if you're a small business and you want to know where to build your second restaurant, how to negotiate a contract, we have people who can consult for that now.
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We have 1,000 small business bankers.
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Now all 48 states.
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We have a rural state strategy, which we did not have before.
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We're going to do skills.
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So I just mentioned about schools and things like that.
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We're going to do 25% of our branch are in lower income neighborhoods.
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And we have, we call community branches.
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Some of them, we invite people in to learn about saving money with some mortgage, buying a house.
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We call them vital institutions where we, we're probably one of the largest banks in the country to cities, schools, states, hospitals, but to do more of that.
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We're one of the biggest affordable lenders in the country.
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We're going to do more of that.
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So it's just kind of, we're going to make it a crusade to do our part, to do more for this part of America, try to help lift up all society.
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This particular moment in time, people are already feeling the pain, and now we've got a war in the Middle East that's driving up costs for diesel fuel,
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for gas, that trickles into all kinds of other things.
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Where do you see this going economically?
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I don't know.
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The economy is one big, complex beast, and even AI can't figure it out.
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I tell people anything that happens is like I strung the camel's back.
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So maybe one day a straw is going to cause that tipping point and push us through a recession, hopefully not to deflation.
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So the war is a couple of straws in their camel's back.
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Whether that causes a tipping point, I don't know.
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I think what's more important for the future of the world is that this war will successfully conclude.
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I hear a lot of people on TV talking about it wasn't an imminent threat.
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No, it wasn't a threat at all.
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They were actually killing and murdering people around the world for the last 47 years.
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They have a ballistic missile that can go 3,000 miles, which I think was a surprise to the American public.
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And they were very close to having nuclear weapons.
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You know, so that's really important.
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Obviously, you know, the gas prices are going to hurt, you know, some folks.
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It's very unfortunate.
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So the sooner it gets properly resolved, the better.
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So the people who feel like we're already in a recession to them, you say, no, we're not.
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No, I think it is for them.
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I know it's for them.
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Oh, absolutely.
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I mean, there are parts of society that are not doing very well.
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And I completely acknowledge that that.
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The war is at a crossroads.
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Iran continues to control the Strait of Hormuz.
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Does America need to take control of that Strait, reopen it before the war ends?
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I don't know the answer to that question.
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You said finish the job earlier, complete it is what you said.
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Yeah, I have to be a little humble here.
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I don't know what the military knows.
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I do know they're quite smart.
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So you speak to some of these folks, they've been planning this for years.
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They've got multiple plans on the book to do things, including Card Island, Strait of Hormuz, I think it's going to be hard to leave and have the Strait of Hormuz closed.
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I do think it would be a real problem for the global economy.
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Because Iran would have a veto power over traffic.
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Basically, yeah.
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But when you said the biggest threat now is that the war isn't completed, what do you mean by that?
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What do you have in mind?
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Well, I think I've thought this since the war in Ukraine started, that the world is not a safe place.
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It never was, we call it, lulled into a false sense of security until the Russians invaded Ukraine.
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At that point, we already knew that, you know, Russia, Iran, North Korea, somewhat aided, embedded by China, have different plans for the free and democratic world.
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Let's talk about affordable housing, one of the key parts of this initiative of yours.
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There's a plan right now in Congress to potentially prevent large investors from buying up single-family homes.
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Do you support a ban on that kind of investment?
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I hate to tell you this, it's basically irrelevant.
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It's not I think they're doing it at 350 homes.
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Only 1% of the homes are owned by what you would call large companies.
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So I don't think it's going to change any calculus.
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I'm not sure it's great because some people want to rent their homes or not, so they go in, they put in money.
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I probably wouldn't do it, but if it gets done, it's okay.
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If you want to fix affordable housing, you can change rules and regulations around mortgages
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that would reduce the cost of mortgages by 30 or 40 basis points and not create any additional risk, in my view.
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And take affordable housing laws mostly local, sometimes state, and you know, don't lord them with job programs, let people build them.
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You know, they're, if you read the list of ridiculous rules why it can't get done,
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you can build a lot more starter homes and starter apartments that people could buy a lot cheaper all over the country.
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And there are some people doing it well.
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I can send you the list of what cities have got it together and they're building stuff.
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And like in California, I think I read, it's 50% more to build, quote, an affordable home than it is in Nevada because of those rules and regulations.
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So there's a lot of things to do to fix it.
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That's what we should be doing.
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That'll make a much bigger difference than limiting, you know, big private equity guys can do.
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Let's talk about AI.
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You've talked a lot about it in recent months.
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You've admitted that it could reduce jobs, and it could reduce jobs across the economy somewhat quickly, too quickly.
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How concerned are you really about the potential for, as you put it, social unrest, even revolution?
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Yeah.
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So this is where I put it.
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In the context for all of us, I believe that 30 years from now, a lot of people, your kids are probably working three and a half days a week.
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They'll probably live to 100, and a lot of the diseases afflicted a lot of us, they won't get.
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They'll be cured to cancer, cars will be safer, planes will be safer, life will be better, you can hike more, do all the things you do.
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You're talking about the Jetsons from the 1960s.
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Walter Cronkite anchored a special about how the future that we're living in right now was supposed to be what you're saying.
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No, this is going to happen.
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I mean, the world is getting very productive.
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AI is going to do that.
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AI is going to jerk answers.
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It's going to come with better materials.
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It'll cure a lot of, stop a lot of car crashes.
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And so I think that is happening, okay?
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It's going to happen.
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The risk is if it is too fast.
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Right.
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I don't know if it's going to be too fast.
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Here's my mind.
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My mind is that there's a risk for it, so it's planned for it.
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So if it happens, we're more prepared.
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That's what I'm saying.
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How seriously do you worry that AI could sweep through the job market so quickly that society takes a real hit?
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I think there's some risk to that.
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I think, shoot, again, my view about risk isn't to guess what's going to happen, is to look at the range of possibilities and say, can you handle them, and what would you do if?
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So, if you're in my show, I always talk about that.
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Here's the range.
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Here's a range of possibilities.
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I may put different odds out of it than you do, but I want to be prepared for it anyway.
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And so, you know, it's the good and the bad, because I'm not trying to do just one.
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So, I do think AI in the long run will create huge benefits for society.
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If it causes a problem in the short run, let's be prepared.
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The reason I lag around this is
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because there are millions of people in the middle of their life with young kids, aging parents.
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Maybe they have a mortgage if they're lucky, and they're looking at potentially being AI'd out of existence professionally.
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What do you say to those people?
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I think we live in the most prosperous nation the world's ever seen.
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And for the most part, we've had a tech a lot of disruption.
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The system worked to create new jobs and new labor.
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There's tons of shortages in labor.
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So I go to talk to all these companies, too, and you should ask them.
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They don't have enough welders.
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There's not enough cyber.
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There's not enough, in certain parts, not enough advanced manufacturing.
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There's not enough metric.
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We're doing the security resiliency initiative.
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One of the people says, I don't need the plant.
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I need people who can work on the plant and I don't have that.
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So there are solutions that we should worry about.
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Is what's worried.
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And I, and I am sympathetic for people worried about that.
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We government and business collaborating should come up with solutions.
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You know, to cry and spill milk.
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Is it going to fix it?
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Solutions might fix it.
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That's a tough diagnosis for a 45-year-old who's thinking about it.
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I agree.
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I didn't think it would be okay, but you must be prepared.
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You grew up in Queens, a jungle gym not far from here.
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I think we can probably see it from the window.
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Yeah.
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For the kid in Queens now, or in a similar neighborhood anywhere in the country, what does that kid mean to know?
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What do you teach a child today to prepare them for this world we're talking about that's going to exist?
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Okay.
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I'll answer that.
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I'm not sure if that's right.
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Talk to everybody.
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Have deep curiosity about the world.
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Read opinion writers on the left and the right.
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Learn to think all the time.
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And then learn to have EQ.
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EQ to me is, can I communicate?
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Do I have heart?
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Do people trust me?
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Can I, you know, that great thing, I saw such a long letter and I didn't have time to write a short one.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Learn to do the short one.
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Learn to travel.
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Learn to open your eyes.
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Don't get weaponized.
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Don't always think you know.
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And when you work with people, you know, you see sports teams, you've seen when teams are humming, they're all working together.
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Learn to do that.
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As opposed to pound your chest, it's all about you.
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Learn to have a work ethic.
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Learn to have a purpose.
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All those things.
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You have a great life.
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Those are the things.
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Their lives are going to be more complex than ours were, basically, or younger, because I think they will have more jobs than we had.
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They'll move around a little bit more.
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I think they'll have great lives.
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But learning, I think, is probably still the number one thing to do.
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It sounds like another way of saying, get off your phone.
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I would say that, yes.
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I've always loved my kids.
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Like that is not going to make you smarter.
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Though a lot of them now read newspapers on their phones and things.
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Yeah, well, my 16-year-old feels like he's going to business school because he's getting fed the algorithm business tips.
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I don't think it's working.
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It's not the same thing.
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Let's talk about prediction markets, since we're looking into the future.
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Can you imagine J.P.
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Morgan being involved in prediction markets, taking positions in them?
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Maybe.
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We've just to start to ask this question.
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So for example, when you buy stocks, you know, I'd really pick, you know, high book value, high risk, fast P growth, all these various things.
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You could do the same thing in a prediction market on a JP Morgan.
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Like I want to be an owner if they do X, I don't want to be an owner if they do Y.
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So you're dividing a stock into little pieces.
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So it's possible one day we'll do something like that.
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We're not going to be in sports.
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We're not going to be in politics or a bunch of stuff we won't do.
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And obviously we have strict rules around insider information.
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You cannot use insider information at all for any reason, including prediction markets.
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We're going to make that clear to where people are here.
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We're studying this about how this is going to work.
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It is kind of an amazing development.
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It is an amazing development.
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I mean, because for a lot of people, they look at it and they think it's just a, it's gambling, basically.
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You don't see it that way.
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Well, no, people have been gambling forever.
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I mean, you probably bet in sports games in your kid.
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No, when you were a kid, you probably bet on poker in your kid and you might have bet with a friend who can win the presidential elections.
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It's been going on a long time.
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People, every country I've ever been in, people gamble.
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Some people, I have a brilliant friend who does the horses, and he is brilliant.
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And I'm like, why are you doing that?
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He likes it.
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You find it very intellectually challenging.
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So I'm not against it.
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I'm against it if it's an addiction that ruins your life type thing.
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I'm a little bit of a libertarian.
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You have the right to do what you want the way you want.
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Just take care of yourself.
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But I get what I'm asking is there's a prediction market more like gambling or is it more like investing?
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I think for the most part we like gambling, but there are areas where you can say no,
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it's investing You you you were deeply knowledgeable You're taking the other side of a bet and you think you're you know, you know better than the other person Yeah,
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let's talk about remote work one of your favorite subjects.
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I know you're not a fan I know why you're not a fan, but is it based on your own experience?
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Is it anecdotal?
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What kind of data are you looking at suggesting being in the office is really better?
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Yeah.
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So we've always allowed, we've always had 10% of people working remote.
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I'm not against remote.
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Okay.
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And, and it works.
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Like we have virtual call centers now in Baltimore and Detroit that are excellent.
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So I'm not against it.
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I'm against it where it doesn't work for the company and the clients or the individual involved.
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And also they get in a free market.
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You could build a company and go all remote.
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and I could build a company and say, go to the office.
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There's nothing more of that either.
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We said in the office because, and I'll give you a couple of examples, for younger people, it's an apprenticeship system.
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You learned your skill because you probably were a young reporter helping someone do other stuff, watching how they handled issues, watching how they handled tough questions,
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watching, it's an apprentice system.
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We saw people, when they weren't coming in, younger kids, kind of being left behind.
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They weren't developing their EQ as much.
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They didn't have as many friends.
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They didn't have much knowledge they weren't being assigned stuff.
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In fact, someone went so far to say to me, we shouldn't allow some of these kids to come in because it's unfair.
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And I'm saying, really?
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You're going to tell the kids they can't have an ambition?
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And so then management, and this is the big one to me, for any manager, I want to be accessible to my people.
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I'm accessible all the time.
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This remote thing, what happens is people say, well, I can't get him.
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He's doing here.
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And I was calling people up and they say, well, he's out.
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Tony's out on a walk or call his cell phone.
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And then it also creates, in my view, a lot of politics when you're on Hollywood squares, instead of having a direct conversation, I could say, that's not what I thought.
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And exactly why people are on their phone, they're texting, they're watching a movie.
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And it became outrageous to me.
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And eventually I said, we're just not allowing it anymore.
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But is that a thing?
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We do allow some.
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And flexibility is a perfectly reasonable thing.
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So we learn in COVID that flexibility is great.
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So we allow much more flexibility, particularly for caregivers, mothers, fathers, thinking of an older parent or something like that.
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But we think we're going to run a better business, do a better job for customers, share more information.
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It's like a neural net.
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JPWAR is a neural network.
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And that neural network starts to break down a little bit when you can't get a hold of people.
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Is that based on data or based on your feeling?
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A little both.
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Okay.
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But like I said, you could build a company one way
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and I could build another company one way based on a feeling.
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It's a free market.
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If you don't want to do it with my company, don't.
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If you don't want to do it with your company, don't.
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But I'll tell you one thing, we would crush you.
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Jamie, thank you very much.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Extended interview: Jamie Dimon on AI, Iran and more”. This video has 377 sentences and 4148 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:06. The speaker talks fast, about 217 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| prediction noun | /pɹɪˈdɪkʃən/ | A statement of what will happen in the future. |
| capitalism noun | /ˈkæp.ə.təlˌɪzm̩/ | A socio-economic system based on private ownership of resources, and capital and their exploitation for profit. |
| gambling noun | /ˈɡæm.bl̩.ɪŋ/ | An activity characterized by a balance between winning and losing that is governed by skill and/or chance, usually with money wagered on the outcome. |
| flaw noun | /flɔ/ | A crack or breach, a gap or fissure; a defect of continuity or cohesion. |
| neural adjective | /ˈnʊɹəl/ | Of, or relating to the nerves, neurons or the nervous system. |
| flexibility noun | /ˌflɛksɪˈbɪlɪti/ | The quality of being flexible, whether physically or metaphorically. |
| prosperous adjective | /ˈpɹɑs.pə.ɹəs/ | Characterized by success. |
| insider noun | /ɪnˈsaɪdɚ/ | A person who has special knowledge about the inner workings of a group, organization, or institution. |
| recession noun | /ɹɪˈsɛʃn̩/ | The act or an instance of receding or withdrawing. |
| straw noun | /stɹɔ/ | A dried stalk of a cereal plant. |
| starter noun | /ˈstɑɹ.tɚ/ | Someone who starts, or who starts something. |
| acknowledge verb | /əkˈnɑ.lɪd͡ʒ/ | To admit the knowledge of; to recognize as a fact or truth; to declare one's belief in. |
| accessible adjective | /əkˈsɛs.ɪ.bəl/ | Easy of access or approach. |
| afflict verb | /əˈflɪkt/ | To cause (someone) pain, suffering or distress. |
| anecdotal adjective | [ˌænɪkˈdəʊ̯tɫ̩] | Of the nature of or relating to an anecdote. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| break down verb | To stop functioning. |
| buy up verb | To buy the whole of; to purchase the entire stock of something. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. |
| drive up verb | To cause or force a price, quantity, rate, etc. to increase. |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. |
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
| leave behind verb | To abandon. |
| lift up verb | To elevate to a higher position. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I always ask the question, why?
- What are you going to do?
- Where do you see this going economically?
- What do you have in mind?
- What do you say to those people?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | You've been writing · we've been educating · they've been planning |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've had · has lifted · we've always done |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were given · isn't completed · are owned |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who can · people who feel · friend who can |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 154 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: ethic /ˈɛθ.ɪk/, thrill /θɹɪl/, sympathetic /ˌsɪm.pəˈθɛt.ɪk/, algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: prediction /pɹɪˈdɪkʃən/, recession /ɹɪˈsɛʃn̩/, apprenticeship /əˈpɹɛn.tɪs.ʃɪp/, deflation /dɪˈfleɪʃən/, disruption /dɪsˈɹʌpʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: capitalism /ˈkæp.ə.təlˌɪzm̩/, flexibility /ˌflɛksɪˈbɪlɪti/, accessible /əkˈsɛs.ɪ.bəl/, apprenticeship /əˈpɹɛn.tɪs.ʃɪp/, recidivism /rɪˈsɪdɪvɪzm̩/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like prediction, capitalism, gambling.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.