The US recession (sorry, Mr President: ‘downturn’) is just beginning, according to JPMorgan Chase boss James Dimon.

According to a report in The Huffington Post blog, Dimon said at a conference in New York: “Even if the capital markets crisis resolves, it does not mean that this country will not go into a bad recession. The recession just started.”

“We don’t know if it’s going to be mild or severe,” he continued. “We’re thinking there’s a third of a chance that it’s going to be pretty bad … closer to the 1982 recession than the very mild recessions we had in 2001 and 1990.”