INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A News 8 exclusive reveals hope and concern from one of America’s most influential voices.

Jamie Dimon is the longtime chief executive officer and chairman of JPMorgan Chase.

Government leaders, policy makers, and business giants hang on his words, and, on Tuesday in a local broadcast exclusive, he shared his thoughts with News 8’s Scott Sander.

Interest rates affect everyone at some level. When interest rates go up, it gets tougher to afford a home loan, car loan, and credit card debt. But when rates drop, inflation becomes painful.

Financial experts everywhere have been to trying predict the next move from the Federal Reserve, and Jamie Dimon is no different in aiming to get a good grasp on the future.

He and Sander covered many topics in a wide-ranging conversation, and News 8 will tackle them all in the days to come, but interest rates impact most people.

While most forecasters fully expect interest rates to start dropping this year, Dimon is not as sure. Read carefully his answer when Sander asked him about the Fed’s efforts so far, and if a drop is certain.

“I don’t think they really had a choice. They were a little late raising rates to 5%. The economy was very strong. It’s still kind of strong. Consumers have had money, house prices are up, stock prices are up, jobs are plentiful, wages are starting to go up, particularly on the low end. Businesses are in good shape. So, they’re going to have to react to what actually happens. So, some think they’ll reduce rates a little bit, some think it’ll be more. I think there’s a chance they don’t reduce them at all. I’d be a little cautious of this one. The good news, it’s a strong economy. The bad news is that does correlate to inflation.”

Dimon then punctuated that thought with this: It’s better to have a strong economy with some inflation than a really weak economy.

He believes a good economy helps more people than any other factor by creating more jobs and, in turn, increasing wages across the board.

This story was created from a script aired on WISH-TV.