Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/08/2012 04:24 AM Report

Dominique Strauss-Kahn tells a story.

Dominique attended a very interesting dinner organized by Hank Paulson with some officials and a couple of CEOs from the biggest banks in the US, and surprisingly enough, all these gentlemen were arguing: “We were too greedy, so we have part of the responsibility.” Fine.

Then they were turning to the treasurer (Paulson), Secretary of the Treasury, and saying: “You should regulate more. We’re too greedy, we can’t avoid it. The only way to avoid this is to have more regulation.” “Yeah, because it was at the moment where they were afraid. And after, when solution to the crisis began to appear, then probably they changed their mind.” (Yes, rehabilitate us only if we will be punished--no punishment then we really aren't all that greedy.)

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/08/2012 04:19 AM Report

From "Inside Job".

May 30, 2006 Hank became Secretary of Treasury.

So his 485 million dollars of Goldman Sachs stock had to be sold when he went to work for the government. No taxes on this sale thanks to George the First (41st). So Hank got to keep $50M he would have had to paid in taxes.

First half of 2006 Goldman sold at least $3.1 billion worth of toxic CDOs while Paulson was still CEO. (Paulson highest paid CEO at this time.)

Late 2006 Goldman still sold toxic CDOs but now betting against them too. (Yes, customers are for exploiting.)

Goldman bought at least $22 billion of credit default swaps from AIG. This was so much that Goldman was worried and then spent another $150 million to insure against AIG's collapse.

Goldman's sales force told to push Timberwolf—these were CDOs that when customers lost Goldman in turn gained--$600 million worth of these securities in 2007. Then in April 2010 had to go to Congress and explain themselves--rather embarrass themselves.

BIGGEST ISSUE: Paulson was a senior advocate for prohibiting the regulation of credit default swaps and at the same time was for lifting leverage limits on the investment banks.

"On the Brink" . . . indeed. That big sucking sound was not jobs going to Mexico but all the money and financial power going to Goldman Sachs.

Thanks for saving us Hank!

winter  05/20/2011 10:32 AM Report

Just watched the film "Inside Job" and I wonder how it must feel to have been more involved as part of causing the economic meltdown as opposed to effecting any solution. Families put out on the street, in soup kitchens after having their homes foreclosed on? These sorts of people of course have learned the art of denial to the point of believing it themselves while they walked out of the crisis somehow tens of millions of dollars wealthier than if there had been no financial crisis at all. Paulson and his kind keep shouting Freedom and have given the concept as its been practised by high finance a vulgar meaning. To them, Freedom is just the first line of defense for how they do business. Organized crime has evolved to become institutionalized crime with no chance of clawback since that same Freedom will be used to prevent it. I hope the image of children and families out on the street sometimes at least visits the multi millionaire and billionaires. It seems you can't reach that level w/o some questions as to how you managed it ...that is as compared with Working.

doodahdaze  02/13/2010 09:46 AM Report

Sir Voir 02/12/2010 03:43 PM ,

Yes, "the consequences of failure were real" and maybe "everyone involved made a good-faith effort to do what was generally best given the circumstances.". But this whole catastrophic situation, 'this very well schemed-out PANIC of "Oh! The sky is falling!". Was all put in place by the 'Financial-Services' "Industry" (Paulson and his Ivy League chums) pushing and widdling away at banking regulations over many years. Did you hear him mention anything about Glass-Steagal?!?! Hell no, you didn't! He doesn't want to reform shit! He wants to keep everything the way it is! He wants to bullshit his way behind a veil of republican conservativism into living off the fat of CORPORATE WELFARE. I'm a Conservative, and I think Conservatives that do shit like that should be shot!

Voir  02/12/2010 03:43 PM Report

Half these comments make me sick. Read Sorkin's book, the consequences of failure were real, and everyone involved made a good-faith effort to do what was generally best given the circumstances. The question now, and which Paulson very ineptly addresses in this interview, is how to reconfigure this mess and align financial business practices with the interests of the country at large.

But when a bunch of people spout inchoate rage without even the barest understanding of how our system works, you provide cover to everyone involved to sidestep the real issues and instead posture for cameras. You cause the people in these industries, those with too much power to begin with, to reflexively dig in against change, undermining the whole discourse.

Paulson is a product of the system, perfect for saving it, but not to reform it. Fine, but he isn't a criminal, and saying so merely undermines the legitimacy of the opposition to the status quo.

Capslock  02/11/2010 03:43 AM Report

This interview had more jukes and head fakes than Reggie Bush in the Super Bowl! Charlie should stop interviewing his buddies because he never asks them tough questions and always gives them a free pass.

KNA  02/11/2010 12:29 AM Report

Blah, blah, blah ... i.e., You (the public) freaked-up, you trusted us. If you've got any money left buy my book. ~Hank

halleycomet  02/07/2010 11:46 PM Report

It's funny but whenever it looked like the question was tough Hank will be mouthing Charlie.. Charlie...can't blame him though. The whole thing stinks.

No surprise that AIG had to go belly up when it decided to be the re-insurer of the happy-go-lucky sub-prime mortgage market, essentially acting as the last stop of the whole house of cards. The question is why Goldman go 100cents on the dollar? Why no haircut for them. And the obvious answer is a backyard bailout. Goldman had reinsured itself against all the sub-prime market tanking, quite prescient of them, in addition to having the best connections to government. I seriously doubt Goldman would have survived AIG's collapse as Lloyd claims without the quite bailout it got through AIG.

charliesheep  02/07/2010 12:47 PM Report

USED TO BE; HIP WADDERS WERE SUFFICIENT-PROTECTION FOR ENDURING PAULSON AND GEITHNER--BUT, NOW A FULL SUPPORT-- CLOSED SYSTEM-WITH OXYGEN IS NECESSARY TO PLUMB THE DEPTHS OF THIS SEWAGE--FUNNY YOU DONT HEAR PREVIOUS FED FOLKS, WHO HAD SEX WITH THE USA[FOR 10 YEARS] WITHOUT PROTECTION ADMITTING ANYTHING, ACCEPT MAYBE THEYT WERE OBTUSE AND THEIR PERISCOPE-BROKEN--ONLY ONE DEAD HERO CAME TO AID OF THE COUNTRY--DURING 30'S--AND HE WAS FROM TEXAS-FOUNDER OF RED CROSS--HE SINGLE HANDEDLY PUT FOOTING OF BANKS ON SOLID GROUND--BUT THAT WAS A WORLD AWAY--A.I.G.--IS CODEWORD--FOR H.I.V. A VIRUS THAT SPREADS LIKE LEGS ON A PROSTITUTE--AND THE CURE IS TO BE MORAL--IN WORLD THATS NOT-- READ THOSE LIPS THEY LIE !

robdverity  02/07/2010 06:22 AM Report

Paulson's invoking religion does nothing to redeem religions nor him. Indeed it demeans both. Was it Timothy something his dear Wendy read him in his hour of need. VOMIT! Timothy Geithner? And it had to be one of the more flaky. Christian Science - a laissez faire religion re medicine. He should have invoked that same philosophy to his economics. Prayer should have been his only intervention. Then the too-bigs fail (as natural laws would dictate), and the moral hazard problem resolved - emphatically.

May he burn in the hell his Christianity deems he deserves. Or worse, may he suffer the cumulative torment and devastation he has inflicted on the current and future generations saddled with the tax burdens to clean up (bailout) his Goldman Sachs et al putrefaction friends.

A culture with a more grounded sense of values would demand better. A moral cleansing. But then perhaps that fundamental lapse is why it all happened in the first place. Egregious (cultural) greed run amok.

So Hank and Wendy merely epitomize our whole culture? We deserve the God-fearing hand that reached into our's and our children's pockets to keep the top one per cent in Yachts, islands and chauffeured limousines? Alas! Perhaps, perhaps.

So, way to go Hank. You're just a 'good man' (Charlie's word) doing God's work, meting out our just deserts. Mary Baker Eddy has to be proud.

carlottalein  02/06/2010 08:59 PM Report

what a condescending bunch of crap...charlie this and charlie that, like he has remorse for plowing us into his catastrophe. there was info at the time that he squireled away $700 MILLION before they pulled the plug on him...of course he did the best he could, look what he got out of it. it is time for us to realize that all those henchmen cared about was covering their butts...and those of us living under poverty and going without heat in our homes will just have to stuff it. if any other countries were more humane there would be an enormous exodus...many people are tired of it and dont swallow what is going on. Obama has alot to answer for when he walks softly and carries a toothpick.

doodahdaze  02/05/2010 04:30 PM Report

"Even though they screwed the shit out of everybody and everything, I have to admit,(except for the stuttering) Goldman Sachs sure does build a great infiltrating-robot/terminator-thingy. ... I love the story of the 3 page "this is a hold-up" note. Genius!, Genius!, I tell you!, Cheers! Ha Ha Ha Ha Hah" - An anonymous AIG "financial-services" employee :)

robdverity  02/05/2010 08:14 AM Report

Paulson had the temerity to say the deficit was one of his biggest concerns. Well DUH! He created it. His book is doubtless a huge rationalization, in a sense asking for our blessing. The Washington entitlement syndrome. He and his 30 plus million dollar island (Sorkin's book) attests to that.

Too big to fail as a given is a mantra that needs demythologizing. Haitians - as a tragic reminder - show that gangrenous wounds need to be removed - by amputation if needed. The world's finances are in chaos so how did keeping big banks afloat benefit/avert anything. Other than an assured moral hazard repetition.

Big bonuses also are a perverse rewarding of egregious greed that should warrant real jail time instead. These guys aren't harmless children. They've caused REAL damage. Death, destruction and crimes against humanity that are slathered over by debate about their bonuses. It's obscene.

We're a sick society with values that will doubtless ultimately reward us accordingly. Just so Hank Paulson and his ilk (Summers, Geithner, Rubins ad naseum) can have their prestiguous toys a la yachts, islands and multiple homes - all tax havens of course.

Anarchists arise!

robdverity  02/05/2010 06:49 AM Report

Rehashed, but still applicable.

WORLD’S TOP THREE SCAMERS OF U.S. TREASURY: 1. OSAMA BIN LADEN, 2. NOURI MALAKI, 3. HAMID KARZAI. (HENRY PAULSON HONORABLE MENTION).

OSAMA BIN LADEN

11/01/04 - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said he is trying to bankrupt the U.S. through its war on terror, a strategy he says felled the Soviet Union two decades ago in Afghanistan, according to a translation by al-Jazeera television of his videotaped statement.

“All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies,” bin Laden said, according to the al-Jazeera transcript.

Well, the wiley old fox may live in a cave but he’s well on his way. And he even cites the M-I complex - accurately!

NOURI MALIKI (VIA BUSH, CHENEY, M-I COMPLEX OF COURSE)

By Bob Deans Cox News Service Published on: 02/28/08.

The Iraq war will cost Americans between $3 trillion and $5 trillion, including military spending, broader economic costs and decades of benefits and medical care for combat veterans, a Nobel prize-winning economist told the Joint Economic Committee on Thursday.

HAMID KARZAI

“And Afghanistan will not allow the international community leave it before we are fully on our feet, before we are strong enough to defend our country, before we are powerful enough to have a good economy.” Karzai said.

He then added that the world community can’t leave “before we have taken from President Bush and the next administration billions and billions of more dollars.”

“No way that they can let you go.” said Karzai, whose remarks drew laughter.

As of last summer, the United States had spent about $200 billion on the war in Afghanistan, according to congressional officials. Both Bush and President-elect Obama have made continued U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan central to their foreign policies.

HENRY PAULSON - HONORABLE MENTION

By: CNBC.com [28 Nov 2008 ] 01:56 PM ET

Given the speed at which the federal government is throwing money at the financial crisis, the average taxpayer, never mind member of Congress might not be faulted for losing track.

CNBC, however, has been paying very close attention and keeping a running tally of actual spending as well as the commitments involved. And there’s been quite a jump since we last tabulated things two weeks ago.

Try $7.36 trillion dollars. That’s more than double what was spent on WWII, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources.

COMMENTARY

We (Congress/Bush) have given Mr. Paulson a license to steal (TARP).

He has outdone the top three non-resident scammers, and history will wonder (1) how he did it, (2) how he gained the presumptive right(?), and (3) why he was never tried, convicted and incarcerated (for crimes against humanity if nothing else). Of course many other conspirators are due the same attention. Citigroup, a large recipient of TARP funds to rescue their hedge fund operations - the very corrosive part that should be allowed to fail - comes to mind.

It’s obvious that to date the financial wise-guy hedgers got the bailout medicine when excising the putrescent corruption from the financial body before gangrene set in was what was really needed. The really vulnerable and more extensive mortgagee’s crises have gone begging (literally). The predators seem to prevail a la the law of the jungle. Maybe we’re not that much a higher form of animal after all?

Oligarchic governance is a lethal combination. Like a corrupt cop.

Paulson et al should be consigned to living under a Detroit bridge for the downturn’s duration with their victims. Osama bin Laden has to be applauding him and all his ilk - firing his AK47 in the air with great jubilation over the accomplishments of the three non US coconspirators, but doubtless equally exuberant for his unexpected partner and allies “Allie Baba Paulson and his forty plus thieves.”

We’re run by a ship of fools, venal whores and grasping children.

wolfmanwon  02/05/2010 02:11 AM Report

On the Brink is a revisionist hack job to promote Paulson's legacy. Charlie you gave him a pass on this interview. The public is seething over what the Banksters have done to America.

doodahdaze  02/04/2010 05:24 PM Report

Thank you Mr. Paulson, for saving us common, non-financial, working (or wannabe working) types of people. From the dastardly pickle that the deficit and the Democrats did to force the banking (financial-services) elite types to 'play' the political system and pad their own personal accounts by fixing through fake-Conservativism, with the "limited tools" of corporate-wealfare to fix the problem of moral hazard of Capitalism and help kill or suppress all the lesser non-Ivy League graduates that don't always do a good job. And yes, Volker is completely wrong, we should put all our faith in a Super-Dude like you. BTW, did you know that the current Rothschild is about to embark on quite a swashbuckling environmentalist journey across the Pacific Ocean to point out what a bunch of pigs we are? :)

clbusser  02/04/2010 02:05 PM Report

Paulson was not believable. Being the man that wrote the book, he sttuutered and stumbled over his answers to your questions and his added comments. He appeared unsure of the answers that he was giving. He hemmed and hawed and hedged his bet on every reply. I think that he made an outline of how to write the book in order to cover his ass but appeared to have forgotten the outline and was searching the "right" reply. It was a horrible display for a person wjo is suppossed to be of much greater stature. This book is a dishonest read. The book "Too Big To Fail" by Andrew Sorkin is an honest read. And you did not press him enough on executive compensation and his position on reulating it - look at his buy out on his departure from the private sector. You are a terrific interviewer - but don't go soft on your "freinds".

MarieIsenburg  02/04/2010 01:36 PM Report

I am fine with the way the crisis was handled last fall. I object to the rationale for rescuing the financial system. Financing Main Street's inventory and payrolls is an oft-cited reason. Such "just in time" cash flow is apparently "in" today along with "just in time" inventory control. However, there is something wrong with the idea that debt is the only way to run a business. Small and medium businesses should be self-financing to a much greater degree than they have been. To over-simplify: Something is amiss when borrowing is so cheap that it makes it easy to run a business that can't pay for itself-much less accrue a return on the entrepreneur's investment. Perhaps this is one reason the banks have taken a new look at business lending.

winter  02/04/2010 01:32 PM Report

Great timing on having Paulson on, right when AIG is passing out the bonuses. The Fed, most people would agree by now, has to be audited at the least and nationalized at most. Whose country is it anyway?

Sartorius  02/04/2010 01:23 PM Report

Mr.Paulson claims the unemployment rate would have risen to 25% if he, Bernanke, and Geithner have not taken the bold actions to save the nation’s financial system . Did Mr. Paulson pull that number from his brain or another part of his anatomy? Mr. Paulson, fed chairman Bernanke, and Mr. Geithner portray themselves as the three musketeers, saving the financial system from certain collapse. Given the economics signs in the preceding years of an unsustainable boom in the housing market facilitated by dishonest lending , the creation of mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps by financial engineering math wizards who’s models appeared to see unfavorable events as six sigma events, traded in the financial service market were self governance succumbed to greed, the threesome appeared to be have been the three stooges. Are, were they just servants to the investment bankers who influence appear to dominate the New York Federal bank?

Sartorius  02/04/2010 01:23 PM Report

Mr.Paulson claims the unemployment rate would have risen to 25% if he, Bernanke, and Geithner have not taken the bold actions to save the nation’s financial system . Did Mr. Paulson pull that number from his brain or another part of his anatomy? Mr. Paulson, fed chairman Bernanke, and Mr. Geithner portray themselves as the three musketeers, saving the financial system from certain collapse. Given the economics signs in the preceding years of an unsustainable boom in the housing market facilitated by dishonest lending , the creation of mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps by financial engineering math wizards who’s models appeared to see unfavorable events as six sigma events, traded in the financial service market were self governance succumbed to greed, the threesome appeared to be have been the three stooges. Are, were they just servants to the investment bankers who influence appear to dominate the New York Federal bank?

REMant  02/04/2010 11:18 AM Report

But you had no money with which to bail these ppl out. What you did was to rob all the holders of dollars, worldwide, in order to do it. But it has done no good, because it has prevented the failure of firms that not only deserve to fail, but must fail before we can move forward. No more would have failed than those which had to, and still have to. We will remain in this condition until this happens. And he is wrong as well about the repayment of money given to the financial institutions, because again this money came from the Fed and cannot be repaid until either the economy recovers, which it can't as it stands, or is repaid in depreciated dollars meaning that the money is taken from the holders of dollars. If these institutions do have any value, they can easily be reestablished. The fact that they can't is indicative that their failure was justified. This "too-big-to-fail" argument way overvalues those institutions, because it rests on the idea of a going concern resting on a heap of leverage. But when any business cannot repay its loans, it has to liquidate. There is no other alternative. Instead of that they are offered a transfusion of liquidity taken unapologetically from unwilling donors. BTW, we are sure seeing a lot of apologetics lately from the Bush admin.

The problem with making easy money to fight the recessions caused by this process, aside from its fundamental injustice, is that it discourages the savings needed to make investments and hence contracts, rather than expands, lending. When business goes south, the value of cash naturally increases, and ought to do so, so that saving is encouraged and with it investments. There is no way that lending is going to increase until the fundamental business outlook improves, and every honest banker and businessman knows under these circumstances that it can not. Only those in la-la land think so. Economists were unprepared, because like these financial wizards, they have long been dreaming, as Keynes did, of a means to control the economy through the manipulation of money (liquidity, or as some call it, demand) alone.

Too, this manufacture of inflationary credit has long been the instrument bankers have used to subvert established wealth in their own interest and only gets stronger as it weakens real wealth in the downward spiral we have seen since the end of WWII, indeed since banking was introduced in this country. It has to be stopped. With any luck this crisis WILL bring down the Fed, like 1837 brought down the Second Bank of the US. I have no sympathy therefore with someone who finds himself torn between his love of banks and his hatred of government, and exhibits no consideration for the working class. Paulson said Sep 23, 08 "This is not about the management of the cos, just liquidity." He is a monetarist, like Bernanke, and backs him. But Volcker is right, at least in this. We must put an end not only to the cupidity of feudalism, but also to their monied successors, who believe no less that value lies in possession, and the ONLY way to do that is to require lending to always come from savings, or, to put it another way, from the supply-side, not the demand-side.

John Adams, who was no dope, remarked of this issue: "I have never had but one opinion concerning banking, from the institution of the first, in Philadelphia, by Mr. Robert Morris and Mr. Gouverneur Morris, and that opinion has uniformly been that the banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even the wealth of the nation, than they can have done or ever will do good. They are like party spirit, the delusion of the many for the interest of the few. I have always thought that Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke, a hundred years ago, at least, had scientifically and demonstratively settled all questions of this kind."

Terence  02/04/2010 10:50 AM Report

Henry Paulson is so burdened with guilt that his perpetually stuttering whitewash is all the viewer gets. Isn't there a more discreet, graceful way to share your version of the debt balloon? Good God...