Charlie Rose

Larry Rubinoff  10/10/2008 08:11 PM Report

Suggestion: Perhaps you can reformat these comments to include paragraphs as we type them here.

My previous comment seems to run on and it is difficult to know where the copy of a previous comment ended and where my comment begins.

Clarification: Reprinted comment ends with: TRUTH....FOR IT WILL SURELY SET YOU AND US .....FREE."

Thank you

Larry Rubinoff  10/10/2008 07:52 PM Report

I must bring to everyone's attention this comment posted here back in March:

"Comment by Mark Sanders on Thursday, Mar 20 at 02:24 AM

Thank You Charlie for your show. Listen, this whole "crisis" which seems "complex" is just a game of smoke and mirrors. The "money system" is being manipulated and has been for sometime...TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE INTEGRITY OF WHO WE ARE AS A FREE-PEOPLE AND CULTURE. I recommend every citizen of this planet to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin. It tells the REAL STORY OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE. Mr. Volcker may be a well-intentioned person/or an unknowing participant in a hidden scheme wherein very powerful people are seeking to "steal the rug" from underneath our system of liberty and free-enterprise. Also recommended is a video titled THE MONEY MASTERS. Watch it on Google video. We must BE INFORMED ABOUT WHAT IS ACTUALLY THE TRUTH OF WHAT REALLY ALLOWS/MAKES US FREE....OR WE COULD VERY WELL LOSE OUR LIBERTY. Act NOW...watch the video and read the book. Thanks Charlie....FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH....FOR IT WILL SURELY SET YOU AND US .....FREE."

I have long believed in a "shadow type of government" that operates at will and with impunity. I believe The Federal Reserve is a major part of it if not all of it.

Why does no one know who owns this privately held corporation? Why is our central bank, not part of our elected government, a secret organization?

Let me paraphrase the words of Meyer Amsheil Rothschild: Let me control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.

How true this is. Rothschild actually created the central banking system concept. Put Prescot Bush in a financial position of authority and through who he funded Hitler. Put J.P Morgan (the man) in a strong financial position as well which to this day has some magical control over The Fed. It appears that J.P. Morgan the compnay always has a seat on The Federal Reserve Bank of New York which in turn has some measure of power of The Federal Reserve as well. Perhaps that explains why J.P. Morgan got the $55 billion bailout/give away late on a Sunday night with no oversight or discussion. No one seems to talk about that at all.

Mr. Rose, you report and expose truth. What is truly going on in our great but failing nation?

James  05/10/2008 08:41 PM Report

I really want you to feel better Mr. Rose...thank you for bringing on Mr. Volker...I've hoped he would come back on after seeing his name endorseing Obama.

Charlie Rose = National Treausre

Jan Anglin  04/11/2008 08:16 PM Report

Warren Buffett has high regard for Mr. Volcker's past work as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Buffett also has written often in his annual reports about the same trade deficit, CEO and investment bank trader compensation packages with horrible insentives, the failing U.S. Dollar,the off balance sheet, highly leveraged, derivative "deals" between private investment banks that he once called the real "weapons of mass destruction", and the inability of government to respond to these "dark clouds" until there is a crisis.

If all of these risks have been written about in Berkshire Hatheway annual reports, Fortune Magazine and elsewhere for five or ten years, it is incorrect for Mr. Rose to imply that these current problems were not seen until now.

Surely, one can imagine that many others in the financial sector saw these risks but did not disclose them openly.

It is human nature not to want to be the bearer of bad tidings. But what is interesting to me is that Alan Greenspan did not appear to raise an alarm about these known risks, and at a minimum address needed regulation of private investment banks long ago. When he orchestrated the bail out of Long Term Capital, he demonstrated that he understood the danger of these highly leveraged, chain letter "deals" and their potential for wrecking havoc in world financial markets.

What happened?

It might be a good time to interview Mr. Greenspan again.

This is a very serious problem and no one knows for sure when it will be resolved.

john st, clair  03/27/2008 04:44 AM Report

mr. rose, et al.

Sub prime mortgagesâ?¦housesâ?¦.a home?!â?¦.how does one speculate on the value of Home in relation to the national economy?â?¦ "god, if there is a god, save my soulâ?? â?¦.could it be that too many watch home improvement shows, Martha Sturartâ?¦ Oprha? them who have, in all their accumulated wealth, promoted, and exploited the dream of household hope. Yet we (I guess might mean us, but more likely me) hope â?¦that hope is not a commodity! Rather it is a necessity. Not to be exploited. The phony reality. exploiting reality, and all that is life, lowers the value of home. Yet it values homes. Where dose a buck stop?

oh my god...i just...for a second thought about voting for........

nader.......................

â??Homeâ?? exists in those around us, and within ones self............

â?¦ for all of us who live in sleepâ?¦see you in my dreams.

respect to Paul Volcker, and Charlie rose

john

ya i did vote for nader, but gore had california

EARL SEDLIK  03/21/2008 03:38 PM Report

As an international economics educator, I am grateful for the opportunity to share this insightful and enlightening conversation with Paul Volcker that only Charlie, his table, and his remotely controlled cameras can reveal.

Dan Stiefel  03/21/2008 02:02 PM Report

Excellent interview. Very illuminating. I thought it important that one of Volcker's concerns for the future ... the stability of the US dollar re: it's use as the world's common currency ... seems to signal perhaps the next serious crisis for the American economy

As most influential financial figures are hesitant to do for fear of precipitating a crisis, Volcker didn't make specific predictions or go into details on this matter.

I would like to see more shows dedicated specifically to this US World Currency issue.

*** I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MORE SHOWS DEDICATED SPECIFICALLY TO THIS US WORLD CURRENCY ISSUE.***

If we aren't willing to confront the problem in advance ... as we weren't with the tech bubble and the subprime mortgages ... won't the world currency problem also suddenly and "surprisingly" be upon us when other nations suddenly begin to refuse dollars as method of payment?

I'd very much like the news media / this show to do responsible investigative/informative journalism on the economic policies that are currently causing the US currency to become unstable.

Continuing to say that the US is the richest, most powerful economy/ nation in the world's seems to me to be hubris and a guarantee that we will one day soon suddenly be rudely woken up by the rest of the world and find we no longer are.

Mark Sanders  03/20/2008 03:47 AM Report

Thank You Charlie for your show. Listen, this whole "crisis" which seems "complex" is just a game of smoke and mirrors. The "money system" is being manipulated and has been for sometime...TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE INTEGRITY OF WHO WE ARE AS A FREE-PEOPLE AND CULTURE. I recommend every citizen of this planet to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin. It tells the REAL STORY OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE. Mr. Volcker may be a well-intentioned person/or an unknowing participant in a hidden scheme wherein very powerful people are seeking to "steal the rug" from underneath our system of liberty and free-enterprise. Also recommended is a video titled THE MONEY MASTERS. Watch it on Google video. We must BE INFORMED ABOUT WHAT IS ACTUALLY THE TRUTH OF WHAT REALLY ALLOWS/MAKES US FREE....OR WE COULD VERY WELL LOSE OUR LIBERTY. Act NOW...watch the video and read the book. Thanks Charlie....FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH....FOR IT WILL SURELY SET YOU AND US .....FREE.

Jim Chamberlin  03/19/2008 06:07 PM Report

Thanks for having Paul Volker. I have been waiting a while to hear what he thinks about the financial crisis, since he actually got us out of one years ago, and Alan Greenspan probably got us into this one. I was pleased to hear that he did not think it was the end of the world, but also that compensation on Wall Street is one our biggest problems, and that we need more regulation of new financial entities. Hopefully some policymakers were watching.

Allan Ramesh  03/19/2008 05:16 PM Report

Paul Volker's discussion on compensation of wall street wizards which is tied to their investment gains and not penalized for the losses is critical. They take risks at othere people's expense. Right now, many families, local governments, school districts, etc., will pay for the excesses of these MBA executives. I read that the CEO of Bear Stearns purchased a $25 million condo in New York city. Meanwhile, the city I am in has lost $2 million in property related taxes due to foreclosures and the school district my children are in will have to lay-off ten percent of the teachers. How can this be allowed to persist. We have people who are put in jail for small petty cash crimes while tycoons live the high life with no consequences for their actions.

Patrick  03/19/2008 02:31 PM Report

Thank you thank you for having Paul Volker on Charlie. Charlie, please consider doing more shows on this subject - hedge fund managers, pension managers, regulators, money managers, and investment bankers, may not want to talk about the system in which they currently operate - but it a very important subject worthy of your attention and the public's. We still know too little about how the currently banking system - which Bill Gross at PIMCO calls the shadow banking system - works. This largely unregulated system, after Glass-Segal was abandoned, is not well understood by regulators, congressmen, the federal government, or the American people. We dont' need to go back to Glass-Segal, but we do need to understand this system better, since our national well-being and international economic stability now depend upon it. Volker during the interview said that this is the first test of the new system - one can only hope that public debate and opinion will demand that we get our hands around it better in the aftermath of this "crisis." The danger would be, though, that we some how side step the problem and we go on with buisness as usual with out addressing the risks the system presents. Corrporate America is in fairly good shape and American power, despite all the difficulties of late, is still indespensible. But if something like this happened when corrporate Amercan wasn't so strong and American power wasn't as indespensible, then an event like this could damage our country in a very very serious way.

Lucy Gilleran  03/19/2008 01:00 PM Report

Musings of a Wall St. Chick...

WALL/MAIN ST. CREDIT SOLUTION -

Enable/authorize/directe FNMae, etc... to purchase all consumer mortages at the original terms and conditions of the loan for 10 years, and fund our SS defecit with the proceeds. Just b/c a consumer cannot make a payment of $4K/month, doesn't mean that they weren't good for the original terms at $3K/month. There is still incredible fundamental strength in the consumer market. Lack of regulation in origination has caused most consumers to find themselves subject to egregious terms & conditions, that most Main St. mortgage attorneys miss. For example, many sub-prime/adjustable rate loans (which have been widely sold to consumers with good credit b/c of the incentive structures on the Main St. sales side) have been built to ensure profits whatever the Fed does. The T&Cs are modelled to counteract any Fed moves - which should be illegal. A consumer holding an ARM will not necessary see his payment reduced in lockstep with the Fed. If the Fed reduces rates by 2%, and the 'margin' on your ARM is 5% (common), then it would take a 5-point Fed adjustment to keep your payment stable. In addition, most consumer mortgage T&Cs enable the note holder to adjust the rate EVERY TIME THE FED MAKES A CHANGE. Incredible. Regulators have been asleep at the wheel on this one, and the govt SHOULD step in here temporarily until they can fix the regulation. The barrier between Fed action and Main St. results is these usurious terms and conditions which prevail widely in the consumer marketplace. I don't underestimate the government's ability to screw things up, but if you can't make a boatload of profit off a FNMae portfolio of billions of dollars of refinanced, now stable fixed-rate 10/year consumer mortgages, you don't deserve to be in a position of financial authority in the public marketplace. It's the Golden Goose. At worst, the payment flows will fund our SS future cash flow issues.

MODERN UNIVERSAL BANKING -

In a post Glass-Steagall world, if the Fed is going to put the full faith and credit of he US Government behind the securities market, they better begin combining the SEC/OCC/OTS NOW. ... and future action should be sure not to tip the scales of the competitive marketplace. Funny how all these Wall St. Adam Smith Laissez Faire Capitalists grab their skirts and go running for help from The Fed with such facility!

THE STING -

The Biggest Bank Heist in History. In a surprising Jabba-the-Hut-like display of the Utility Monster Principle, the taxpayer funds Jaime's ego. The Fed is ultimately funded by the taxpayer. When it prints cash, the real value of taxpayer assets decline. Taxpayers who are Bear employees lose twice - they lose their jobs, and the value of their shares and deferred compensation. The Fed guarantees the crappiest of the crap on Bear/JPMC's balance sheet, and the taxpayer pays for it. If the government owns the notes, and we maintain the mortgage interest tax exemption, what's the real net national revenue implication? By causing an inevitable round of consolidation in the banking/securities industry, the tax payer end's up paying yet again for this action via reduced market competition and increased corporate market power. I could go on... Would we vote for this?

denise tulloch  03/19/2008 12:52 PM Report

Sorry about whatever happened to your eye and for being a trooper for going on air like that. it shows that your not a vain person.

denise  03/19/2008 12:49 PM Report

sorry about whatever happened to your eye and being a trooper for going on air like that.It shows that your not a vain person.

Anonymous  03/19/2008 12:47 PM Report

To Chris Baker:

"It's important to understand how devastated some municipalities are going to become thanks to Wall Street bankers greed. Home owners by the millions are going to be holding on to real estate worth less than their mortgage. Some municipalities with a lot of multi-family property are going to become absolutely devastated. It's seems someone on Wall Street has got to pay for the misery their greed has created"

Wall St. currently is paying in the form of losses, and they will probably pay more in the future in the form of increased regulation. Justified. But you also seem to feel that property owners are suffering today because Wall St. villians are stealing your money. The opposite is true. The problem is that Wall St. villians lent money to people who wanted to own property too freely. Property owners effectively got what they haven't deserved for years. Now it's returning to where it should have been. It's painful to loose wealth for any reason. But don't think that people are loosing money they rightfully earned, people are returning money they never should have had access to in the first place.

Deborah Bluestein  03/19/2008 12:22 PM Report

A pothole? Gee, I thought Charlie's eye reflected a recent trip through the subprime market! Hope his eye (and his wallet) are doing better soon.

Bob Tourville  03/19/2008 12:15 PM Report

I wish the website manager would attend to things. A click on the conversation with Obama brings one here, and a click on the Volcker brings one to comments on Obama. And we really need a paragraph feature. The Volcker interview was very informative. One needs to listen closely. Volcker is smart and informed. He uses invented phrases to avoid issues. One example "financial engineering", yikes. He was the hachett man who took away the punch bowl, before so he knows what is coming. Read it as a lot of pain. Even with increased exports, ( Charlie raised the right question: With what factories ), there will be much higher prices, lower wages and few jobs. Money will be tight, with high interest rates. Taxes will have to increase, too. Even with the great good luck to get proper regulation, and benign and enlightened govt. intervention, we are looking at a decade of pain, again. Another wish list, Charlie: Let us read the interviews as we can the newshour. There is a lot in the interview. One big answered question: What now the dollar is no longer a world standard?

Chris Baker  03/19/2008 11:21 AM Report

It's important to understand how devastated some municipalities are going to become thanks to Wall Street bankers greed. Home owners by the millions are going to be holding on to real estate worth less than their mortgage. Some municipalities with a lot of multi-family property are going to become absolutely devastated. It's seems someone on Wall Street has got to pay for the misery their greed has created, however so far with the exception of Bear Stearns the Federal Reserve seems to be making sure they won't pay.

Volker however backed the Federal Reserve's decisions although he said they shouldn't loan federal funds on assets that aren't strong. He said in the longer-term there has to be an institution created to deal with mortgage-backed securities - something like the FDIC created in the early 1990's. It's essential all this foreclosed property be sold as quickly as possible, and it will take new mortgage loans to do so.

That is while Congress has been expounding at great lengths on the risks to those being foreclosed on, the real need is to help those who are going to be buying the foreclosed property. Right now Wall Street has turned off the mortgages funds to all those except with the best credit.

RE Mant  03/19/2008 12:57 AM Report

Volcker said, I think, that while cos are in good shape American consumers are not. The question is then why not and how to address this. Surprisingly he did not get into the question of inflation and its effects. You can as the Keynesians do support increased consumption, or as the Austrians do increased productivity. The former create debt, and the latter depend on savings and investment. Americans no longer save, indeed except for a relatively short time, they never have, and have always been Keynesians, with banks lending more than they have in deposits. The result has been constant inflation vis-a-vis commodities and real estate, and a decline in work ethic and honesty. The moral hazard problem is really not that ppl will do the same again, but that they begin to feel that this is the way the game is played, and there is no point in work, savings or quality. Increasing inflation encourages ppl to work, save and invest less and speculate more or put their money overseas or in commodities. Put another way it is a loss of virtue, and measures need to do more than regulate, but encourage what economists have termed a "virtuous cycle," to increase the reward to virtue as well as limit the possibilities for speculation. Obviously getting investment banks and hedge funds under control is necessary. Increasing the reserve requirement for banks to 100% would certainly help. A simple, constant and equitable tax system would also make a big difference. But there is also little doubt that public ownership of the institutions most ppl work for has detached them from the virtue that private ownership provided rather than making the situation better, much as has the spread of democracy generally and the loss of face-to-face relationships. It is immaterial whether they are owned by one person, or the employees, but ownership by the public has encouraged an interest in short-term return rather than long-term productivity and a kind of inflation of its own, and divorced responsibility from actions, and reward from work.

disingenuous  03/19/2008 12:36 AM Report

Financial engineering = egregious greed. The resultant losses are being socialized, while the gains are capitalized - to the effete elite. Federal Reserve wouldn't consider bailing out the duped mortgagee, but came charging when the big wise-guys out greeded themselves. Moral hazards be damned. Assuring a repeat in the future a la the Savings & Loan fiasco in the past. Mostly broad ineffectual pablum.