Spitzer: "We're Sowing The Seeds For A Future Crisis" (VIDEO)

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting" today and expressed his fear that we're "sowing the seeds of a future crisis" by allowing the sense of urgency of passing meaningful reforms of Wall Street to fade, letting us return to "doing business the way it had been done":

We have moved away emotionally from a sense of crisis. Ben Bernanke says we are out of the recession. The economy will be growing. Suddenly we are back to the status quo ante. We're back to doing business the way it had been done and the sense of urgency has gone. The old institutions have gotten bigger. Those that survived have gotten our taxpayer backstop. They are now enveloping Congress in this argument, 'hey, things aren't so bad. Let us continue to do the job as we were doing it.' And a couple of us are saying, wait a minute, we haven't confronted "too big to fail." We are sowing the seeds of a future crisis. But there is no longer a sense of urgency. The President's speech on Wall Street a couple days ago just disappeared into the ether as though it didn't happen. The audience was quiet; the public didn't respond. It's gone.

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Comments

[figneutron]

It's patently ridiculous to blame all the social, economic, and cultural problems of our country on government and politicians! The tail doesn't wag the dog! Government is reactive and short-sighted by virtue of the political organization of our society. In comparison, private enterprise is proactive and far-sighted. Private enterprise is the motor of change while government is the moderator, and, ironically so, the governor of it. To a large degree, phenomena related to globalization are the root of the economic problems that confront us today. Simply said, the United States is no longer able to manipulate and exploit weaker countries as effectively as it did in the past. More and more we are forced to compete and earn our gains rather than just take them. The shoe is now on the other foot, so we must woo instead of rape, which is what we did for more than a century. This adjustment is difficult and painful, for It means death and birth among the threads and patterns of our social fabric. Here, the place of government is to facilitate this transition and make it more bearable. Unfortunately, circumstances dictate that the United States must accept at least a temporary decline in its standard of living as we eliminate our fat-and-la­zy-and-was­teful ways. Our culture must change to adapt to new and greater demands. It won't happen overnight but over a generation ans not without great faith, firm patience, equal sacrifice, or hard work .

[KingMidas]

""But there is no longer a sense of urgency. The President's speech on Wall Street a couple days ago just disappeared into the ether as though it didn't happen. The audience was quiet; the public didn't respond. It's gone."

HESUS H CHRIST ON a STICK! Can you people understand that RIGHT NOW the PUBLIC is actually concentrating on ONE thing now....HEA­LTH CARE???????

Not everyone in America suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder!! HEALTH CARE NOW, AFGHANISTAN LATER, BANKS After that!!! There is ONLY ONE person in America can concentrate on more than one thing at at time and it AIN'T you Mr Spitzer.

Cut the President AND THE PUBLIC some slack - Christ, they are rioting in Pittsburgh NOW- how MANY THINGS are we to be WORRIED about at a TIME?

Didn't we just get over some stuff?

[Ventoi]

Bernanke is back...
and some articles ponder why that is?

Perhaps we have not yet dealt with his reason for having been allowed to show up in government in the first place?

Where might we do that?

I disagree with this location..­.as I am personally offended on many levels by its particular constituen­cy...

but we may look at the information (or lack of) stored in the works of the Bernake Ladies.

[OMike]

Spitzer Was Right About Wall St.He Was Set Up By The Banksters In Bed With The Powerful

[FormerReaganite]

Spitzer was one of the "good guys."

It does seem that industry may be "setting up" politicians which stand in it's way. Anyway, I can see a comeback for him. Truth and justice do prevail!

[Bluemarbles]

Say what you will, Eliot Spitzer is baaaaaack! From what I just heard, we're lucky he is. He made a gaffe with a hooker, which I'm a whole lot less interested in than I am the experience and knowledge he has to offer the American Public.

[Tags]

It's a lot easier to fix Spitzer than this bloated Credit Default Carcass that's too big to fail but not too big to blow up.

[jazzblues]

Last time I checked...­Spitzer himself "sow" the seeds of his own future crisis...h­ehee...

i kinda used to like him...but his hypocrisy made him this sh.it.less...worthless kinda guy...oh well! I am sure he thoroughly enjoyed sowing his seeds....h­ehehe

[PuzzledInDC]

Spitzer, in spite of his past personal conduct issues, is a smart guy and was a good public servant. I think it's great that he continues to use his good sense to point out that unless we get at the root cause of the recent economic upheavals we are going to be heading for another, more serious crash.

[hmargret]

Americans realize how corrupt our system is.
Obama campaigned on CHANGE and then changes nothing. duh, we feel like we fell for a Trojan horse.

Americans are outraged about the financial situation.
Spitzer allowed his personal indulgences to be more important than his duty and honor. what a loss!

what do we do now? we have mostly lost everything material. ok. now, recreate ways to live that don't feed this corporate system. learn to live off credit. live with what we have. take our money out of the system. they can't be rich without the masses money. YES WE CAN!

[OpposingViewpoint]

Change? That, in truth, is what our political establishment has been giving us all along.
We used to have a strong dollar...P­­olitician­s changed that.
We used to be respected around the world... Politicians changed that.
We used to have a strong manufacturing economy... Politicians changed that.
We used to have a truly progressive tax structure.­.. Politicians changed that.
We used to enjoy more freedoms..­­.Politici­a­ns changed that.
We used to be a large exporter of American-made goods... Politicians changed that.
We used to educate children in schools...­. Politicians changed that.
We used to enforce LEGAL citizenshi­p... Politicians changed that.
We used to have affordable food & energy prices... Politicians changed that too.
One could go on and on with this list. Whatever hasn't been changed, politicians are promising to change that too if you will only elect them. In the meantime, we will see and ever increasing number of unemployed, over a million homeless children in the streets, healthcare reform legislation that looks more like a welfare program for the insurance industry, and the ever present partisan apologists for both sides of the aisle, one blaming the other for our social i*lls and neither giving a righteous dam about anything more than their favorite political party.

[october2009]

Good points!

[FormerReaganite]

Of course, consider that industry "owns" many politicians. Therein lies the problem...

[KingMidas]

Actually, NO - WE THE PEOPLE demanded that and got it.

Of course, now that we don't LIKE what we got, we blame the Politicians.

[Ozohead]

Oh come on you guys! He's an expert at sowing seeds!

LOL

[kid5rivers2]

Stole my thunder again I see? lol

[DrMittens]

i've been saying this for months (admit it, you heard me in my kitchen!) that he was the person for the job all along. but since the american people are so worried about the private affairs of public figures it wasn't politically possible. this is one place i would have welcomed a little more audaciousness from the prez...

[FoxIslander]

uh...this wasnt an affair...i­t was a hooker. Isnt there a difference?

[DrMittens]

that's a fair point but i think that's a minor infraction in the grand scheme of things.

[Tidyus]

I think he was set up to bring him down!

[dobberdoss]

"Corruption" is bringing this country to it's knees, why can people not see that?

[OpposingViewpoint]

"Corruption" is bringing this country to it's knees, why can people not see that?

One can only define the inability to see the corruption you speak of as "partisan blindness", an affliction that is of e-p-e-d-e-m-i-c proportions in this country. Some people want to define our current problems as republican vs. democrat, or even by color. It REALLY is a class struggle, us against them, the banksters and our political elite from both sides of the aisle. Many on MainStreet are simply prolonging our ag*ony by defending the culpable based solely on party identity. It's time MainStreet ceases this self-destructive BS and get on with the business we all know needs to be done, and that is cleaning up the mess that exists inside the beltway. No longer can we allow the elite to divide us along party lines with their divisive rhetoric, pitting us against us, it is well past time "us" begin to act in the best interests of "us".

[bobwalters]

I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion, and most of the way you get there. The biggest obstacle to what you propose, I'm afraid, is precisely the "partisan blindness" you identified, including its extent. What it will take to overcome it in sufficient numbers, and to motivate enough people so enlightened to act in concert with other people whom they may not know and/or whom they view as radically or racially different, will be a monumental task.

On an academic level, it is curious to me that so many people like to consider themselves "rugged individualists" and therefore have little or no interests in common with other folks. In fact, and inescapably, individual interests in a pluralistic society can only be realized/fulfilled when pursued in concert with others -- in a mutuality that lends strength and credibility to each individual's pursuits in direct proportion to the degree to which that individual contributes to the similar pursuits of her/his neighbors.

That is, individual goals can only be attained in the context of contributing also to community goals. Unless, of course, the rugged individual wishes to retreat to the mountains and forests -- alone -- and live off the land with whatever tools he/she can carry on their backs. Even then, the life of a complete hermit with NO contact or interaction with the rest of the world would be, in this day and age, virtually impossible -- in America, at least.

[Brute]

Spitzer speaking out against Obama's economic policy means Spitzer is a racist.

[kid5rivers2]

He perfunctorily selected only pale-skinned call ladies, ergo, in that respect, he is.

[FormerReaganite]

seriously?

[KingMidas]

Probably IS...after all he married a WHITE woman and slept with a WHITE prostitute.

[Anntink]

Bankers live in a different world than the rest of us do; their world has no borders. It's hard for us ordinary citizens to understand their actions because our loyalty is to our country, but a banker's loyalty is to the banks; nationality is simply irrelevant, because the world's finances are so intertwined. The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve can slide over to a similar post at the Central Bank of England (or France or Germany) without missing a heartbeat. We think in terms of national interest. They think in terms of internatio­nal/multin­ational interest. It most likely never occurred to Paulson or Bernanke that there was anything wrong in giving American taxpayer money to Swiss, German and English banks and they were probably astonished that we were upset about it. DO NOT FOR ONE MINUTE believe the Federal Reserve or any other banking entity will put a premium on acting in the best interest of America. Their number one priority is to global financial system; everything else is secondary.

[billjones224]

Using this knowledge, how smart was it for Obama to appoint Geithner to represent "the peoples" money? Is Geithner working for the people or is he working for the Banking elite??? What responsibility should Obama take for appointing him?

[bobwalters]

You're assuming Obama had a choice, which is not at all clear, given the power and reach of the banking cartels.

[OpposingViewpoint]

Ah yes, Bernake & Paulson, that dynamic duo of international finance. There is a third member of this team, making in the triple play of greed, duplicity, and in my view, corruption.
In June of 2008, with a financial hurricane gathering force, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. convened the nation’s economic stewards for a brainstorming session. What emergency powers might the government want at its disposal to confront the crisis? he asked. Geithner, who as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank oversaw many of the nation’s most powerful financial institutions, stunned the group with the audacity of his answer. He proposed asking Congress to give the president broad power to guarantee all the debt in the banking system, according to two participants, including Michele Davis, then an assistant Treasury secretary. The proposal quickly died amid protests that it was politically untenable because it could put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars. But in the months since then, the government has in many ways embraced his blue-sky prescription. Step by step, through an array of new programs, the Federal Reserve and Treasury have assumed an unprecedented role in the banking system, using unprecedented amounts of taxpayer money, to try to save the nation’s financiers from their own mistakes. Where are the unprecedented amounts of programs or unlimited funding to save US, Mainstreet, from THEIR mistakes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/business/27geithner.html?_r=1&hp

[newleaf]

when the bailout began, it looked to me like a bunch of pigs lining up to raid a cookie jar which Paulson just yanked the lid off of. I was appalled it was allowed to happen. Pretty much like a kid working Best Buy and giving away big screen tv's to all his friends and leaving us the bill.

[bobwalters]

The real government role in the banking system is to passively or actively guarantee its continued profitabil­ity...for the banksters. Historically, this has been true since the first government made the grave error of borrowing money at interest from a bankster. That is how the Federal Reserve and its member banks control not only the money supply, but how that money is used by the government. The Federal Reserve, not the government, creates US money and lends it to the government, at interest. The same is true of every other national central bank, except, maybe, the Bank of China.

[bobwalters]

Actually, their priorities and loyalties are to money -- its accumulation (in their pockets, of course), and the power it can bestow to make more money, and gain more power, to make more money, etc., etc., etc.

[hawk22]

Elliot "The John" Spitzer breaks the law by hiring a prostitute and for many posters here thats okay because he is a liberal. If Gov. Sanford was sitting in that seat, he would be ripped. Spitzer needs to shut up and stay out of politics and Sanford needs to resign. Spitzer is just sorry he got caught.

[billjones224]

It's ok because prostitution should be legal!!!

[hawk22]

What else would be legal in your world? Just curious.

[FoxIslander]

...again..­.there is a difference­...its the hypocracy of a bible thumping wingnut. I could care less about who anyone else sleeps with.

[FormerReaganite]

Agreed.

[Alexander2791]

people living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. In Vegas it would be ok.....but in NY or DC not. Provided Spitzer didn't use our tax money, we shouldn't care but we should welcome and use his knowledge of the system to understand the cynical strategy that is currently applied to save WallStreet. Obama should be held fully accountable for hiring Geithner and his likes. Otherwise, where will the buck stop?

[Tidyus]

Spitzer was set up. It could happen to you. If we called out all the sins and sinners and hyprocrites, we wouldn't have any government. They is us.

[FormerReaganite]

Like Jesus said: "Let he who is without sin, should then cast the first stone..."