Big Think Interview With Eliot Spitzer | Big Think
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- Big Think Interview With Eliot Spitzer
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A conversation with the former Governor of New York State.
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Eliot Spitzer:
Eliot Spitzer is a former Governor of New York State. He served as New York State Attorney General from 1998 until 2006 and as the 54th Governor of New York from January 2007 until his resignation on March 17, 2008. He is currently a Slate magazine columnist and professor of political science at City College of New York.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Question: Are any particular firms or individuals to blame for the market meltdown, or was the system as a whole rotten?
Eliot Spitzer: Well, the answer is both. I shy away from either/or questions or answers. I think there would be a simplicity and a desire to say, “Ah ha, we found the one person whose grievous errors in judgment caused this entire cataclysm.” Let’s begin it at a different level.
There was an ideological framework that began - politically began with the election of President Reagan and grew in power, and gained its greatest strength perhaps in Alan Greenspan as the Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank. A belief that deregulation of markets would create greater wealth. Now, those that believed this worldview are not evil, they’re not bad people by any stretch. They simply embraced an ideological framework that certainly, I think, is wrong. And I think most of the world now having seen where it took us, would agree that it was wrong. And they fundamentally misunderstood how markets work. That’s sort of a broad statement, and yet I think it’s accurate. I don’t think Alan Greenspan really understood markets. He didn’t understand human behavior. He didn’t understand the drive and urge on the part of market participants to play games, to over-leverage, to cheat, to break the rules that are essential for a market to work, and therefore he and those who were participants in this world view did not believe in either parameters for leverage, or enforcement when it came to principles of integrity and transparency.
We could have a more complicated discussion of externalities and how you can get to systemic risk, but there was that ideological backdrop. There were also individual malefactors who committed outright fraud. You have Bernie Madoff at one extreme, you have people who were marketing mortgages that they knew were not real, in the sense that the borrower could not repay. You had people who were putting triple A ratings on debt that was not good. You had people who were lying about the value of the house; you have people who were lying about their income. So, across the spectrum, you had individual acts of deceit and lies and criminal conduct, but you also had this systemic failure that derived from an ideological perspective that needed to change.
Question: What legal or institutional safeguards should have been imposed to prevent the crisis?
Eliot Spitzer: Well there should have been many things that could have been done from the regulation of derivatives, which I think is everybody’s favorite example of where a financial product was created that permitted enormous wealth to be generated for investment bankers. This buying and selling of a financial instrument, about risk related to something you don’t even buy that really didn’t add a great deal, if anything, to the valued - underlying value of our economy. And there was absolutely no regulations of the leverage that attached and that was existing in some of the institutions that were buying and issuing these derivatives was astronomical. Of course, the AIG Financial Products Division being the, sort of the final straw that when it broke the camel’s back, is the old cliché, we saw that there were hundred of billions, if not trillions of dollars of guarantees backed up by no capital. And you say to yourself, “How can that happen?” This was crazy. So that was one example of fundamentally misguided economic structure that needed to be addressed.
Question: Is Bernie Madoff emblematic of our era, and if so, what about our era gave rise to him?
Eliot Spitzer: Well, there have been Ponzi schemes throughout history. He was bigger, more brazen, more remarkable, because of his capacity to survive, even when the SEC had supposedly taken a hard look at him on numerous occasions. So, yes, I think he will become - his name alone will come to typify and capture an era of irresponsibility and lack of allegiance to simple principles of integrity in the marketplace.
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/v...
Smartest guy in the room.
IN 2002.....ELIOT SPITZER PERPETRATED THE DISSOLUTION OF FOUNDER: KERMIT EADY'S "BLACK UNITED
FUND"....FOUNDED IN 1979..THE PURPOSE OF THE BLACK UNITED FUND. WAS " ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EMPOWERMENT'.
Eliot Spitzer 2016!!!!! I hope he runs as he's the one person this nation needs most!
Aha, so "socialised risk &privateised profit" is straight out of the school of "Heads I, win Tails you lose."
He's still a hero in my eyes.
In mine too,I always liked Eliot Spitzer.John M Guinto
this guy was a really smart person, i honestly believe he's character is the one we need in politic right now. too bad!
Wow, this guy is smart.
i think eliot spitzer is absolutely the best sheriff and leader we should have kept as atty general or governor. i truly believe that eliot spitzer would have arrested and prosecuted many of the crooks during the financial crash. i think our country's obsession about sex and why men do what they do with other adult women is just completely insane. eliot is not only smart but a true patriot for our country. when are we going let go of our quaker obsession with sex and allow capable men and women like Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton to do their job and give the middle class americans a fighting chance to truly pursue the american dream? instead, we have crazy, racist, religious republican freaks and war criminals like Bush, Cheney, Cruz, Trump, Santorum and the list just seems to go on and on. i hope Eliot Spitzer will consider running for atty. general again but i know those in power will never let it happen because they are so afraid of who or what he might uncover. Go Spitzer!!
But let's ignore the fact at the same time he was making laws against his own kind, lol.
I would still vote for him. He's young. He'll bounce back.
I don't think it was what he did, it was that he sent other people to prison over prostitution when he used them himself. It was total hypocrisy.
I would cast my vote for Eliot Spitzer, regardless of what office he ran for. (I think he would make an excellent Senator, President, V.P., etc. :)
Who cares what he does in his personal life.. At this point I'd take a man w/ skills & smarts & his ethics re: the job he's elected for on the proper side of right, ya know!? (Infedelity is something between him & his wife, not us at all!)
I like this guy, he may have made mistakes, but I think he's a genuinely cool guy.
This is why I thought Spitzer should not have resigned. The man is brilliant . He should have been forgiven as his service out weighed any personal mistake he may have made.
Oh Eliot...
I'm glad he admits that the risk was socialized, which by definition, means that it was not free markets that caused the 2008 crash.
So, at least as I see it, you have an issue with criminal justice system.
Disclosure. Three nights in New York City (Apr-2003) is all I have seen of it (or of New York State). I live in eastern Australia.
Some things, at least as I see it, are worse than doing time. Spitzer doing time, at least as I see it, is what would have let him off the hook.
He did wrong but, in office, he acted. He acted when no-one else would. When no-one else would. Having worked in financial services, that is huge.
27:10 I heard of him in Germany while being in economic education. It was surprising because I carry the same lastname and didn't now Spitzer's are in politics
No one cares about his "urges". They care that he was the Gov. and having sex with hookers. Illegal activity. If he had an affair it would have made him look bad but he wouldn't have had to step down. Many of these women were young and likely exploited. He needed to step down and should have done time.
Well I disagree with his progressive view on policies but he is a master of implementing power in politics as he has been through all the positions, such a shame he doesn't realise his own turned on him and ruined his path to being a potential president, what a mind
handsome and smart...
i hope mr. spitzer can re-saddle up for public office. how many of our "leaders" have even a fraction of his reasoning skills. too bad hard dicks trump rationality. still, it doesnt seem to have effected his (nor bill clintons) ability to do the job.
Whilst I do find it somewhat troubling that he used prostitutes himself and yet prosecuted prositution rings, I can chart that up the human weakness rather than as a whole description of his character. I think Spitzer was right i the long term and was ultimately a force for good in politics. He certainly has the right idea about Wall Street. I think he's also the kind of thoughtful person who learns from mistakes and would do a good job if elected again to a public position.
I am not a huge fan of Democrats and all aside of his personal scandal, economically intelligent and knows how business works.
wallstreet = ponzi
that you care about his sex life says a lot about you I suggest you go back to the enquirer
But let's ignore the fact at the same time he was making laws against his own kind, lol.