Arianna And Eliot Spitzer On How The Financial Crisis Could Have Been Avoided

Arianna joined CNBC's Squawk Box crew and former New York governor Eliot Spitzer Thursday morning to discuss stress tests results, which banks need more capital, and how the financial crisis could have been avoided.

Arianna and Eliot Spitzer's discussion on how the financial crisis could have been avoided, continued:

Comments

[joyce628]

Spitzer is the " MAN". We all know that Wall Street together with the Bush administration brought him down. So what if the man paid for a little sex on the side with his own money. This is between him and his wife. I would prefer someone paying for sex with a concenting adult, than for the fraud of an illegal war for profit, the lothing of the treasury under Bush and Paulson just before coming out of office and for giving away tax payers money to Wall Street, with no strings attached, yet congress could not pass the law to help out the home owners with their mortgage rates that these said banks trick them into with their predatory lending. If we do not vote out the law makers who are in the pocket of the lobbyist and who are passing laws to benefit the boys on Wall Street, this country will go down to hell in a basket. You go Spitzer, you are the man.

[Star2000dancer]

Sptzer would have stopped the designed collapse. They had to get rid of him. I want him back! He fought for the people & was able to fight at whatever level he had to.

[doubtingdavid]

Perhaps, but if Pelosi, Dodd, Frank and how many other Dems/libs had allowed the reforms requested by the previous administration on Fannie and Freddie along with not forcing nbanks to make l;oans to peopole who clearlt could not afford to by homes, the whole collapse might never have happened in the first place. Libs are sooo easy!! LOL!!!!

[kreoth]

Spitzer's piece on Geithner is upsetting but highly illustrative:

http://www.slate.com/id/2217811/

I agree with what so many have already said. The "powers that be", the "unmentionables", went after him for pouring some disinfectant into the one of the various Wall Street cesspools.

In the words of U2: "you're dangerous, 'cause you're honest". I still have somewhat mixed feelings about Spitzer (he was after all a morality crusader boinking prostitutes on the side) but having him around is probably better than not having him at all.

[mikekc]

Pathetic that not one of the troubled newspapers or CNN could break this news first. It's all publicly available information. Here's how you can sum up the coverage of most major mainstream news on economics and finance:

"Economics is hard!"

"Hank Paulson works 80 hours a week!"

"Timothy Geitner is announcing his plan!"

"Economics is so hard, let's talk about celebrities now! Susan Boyle can sure sing!"

"I love to twitter - did you all catch that, I know what Twitter is! You send Tweets! I like to Twit! Did you catch that joke I just made!!!"

[mbsq]

you can't just talk about a technical matter you have no clue about. that makes you a charlatan.

[Bruupo]

Well then make up your mind-

[etc]

You can't just use the words, if you have no clue what they mean:

dilettante (plural dilettantes or dilettanti)
==========­==========­==========
An amateur, someone who dabbles in a field out of casual interest rather than as a profession or serious interest

A charlatan (also called swindler or mountebank)
==========­==========­==========­========
A person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretence or deception

[patpost]

little can be done on judgment.
However, there are conflicts of interest and antitrust issues all over the place. e.g. Moodys is rating some 'securities' (AAA,..) used by banks who happened to be their customers. e.g. CEO of BoA was the chairman of the board that supposed to 'review performance of the CEO'.

[navalvet]

It was good that Arianna was on CNBC, but that cable network is extraordinarily biased. Anchors, as well as commentators general speak of "death tax," rather than estate tax. I think it could be possible to be a business or a financial station without being a mouthpiece for business interests instead of national interests. I suspect that simply posting prices and summarizing market activity is not nearly as entertaining as having Kudlow sound off.
I was told that during the morning, there was as advocate for restoing Glass-Steagle, whose revocation contributed heavily to this toxic mess.

[TXfemmom]

Obama should issue a pardon for any behavior in which Spitzer was involved in his hooker-gate and put the guy to work, with the understanding that his ethics better be straight arrow.

Besides, Spitzer would never have been pursued had he not been a Democrat. Look at David "diaper boy" Vittmer of Lousiana.

[lordjin]

I may be off the mark, but I think Spitzer is the last person Obama would want on the inside, considering the people he has in place. Look, it's not like Obama just put Summers and friends in power out of ignorance of their involvement with this financial crisis. No, that's not Obama. He's a man that does things for a reason, not out of ignorance. So what could be his reason?

[OohChit]

That was one of the best. Spitzer and Elizabeth Warren were great. We need those type of people in authoritative positions.

[luke150]

Warren is just brilliant.

[bbbbmer]

I can see why Spitzer was the target of Wall Street honchos -- he's FORMIDABLE and ARTICULATE and KNOWS the marketplace inside out -- including all the unregulated shell game tricks... Frankly, I don't think he should have resigned -- I don't give a flying f*** WHO he sleeps with or if he pays for it... But he would have made an EXCELLENT challenger to the firms that were at the root of this economic meltdown, and hopefully he will be at the forefront of fighting their 'greed is good' policies and practices now that he's a civilian..­. THIS interview was EXCELLENT!!!!!

[BerrSD]

It's also the reason the media and high powered honchos worked so hard to get rid of John Edwards because he knows how the corporations work and wasn't about to take any guff from them.

[Deus Angelus]

Wall Street controls the media. We need to draft Spitzer and demand the President place him as deputy Treasury Secretary since we don't have one yet.

[BerrSD]

It's too bad at what happend to Elliot Spitzer. I've been a fan of his for years and was very pleased when he ran for and became the governor of New York. I saw him making a bid for POTS in the future because the man is very knowledgeable concerning business and government policies and practices. We, the people, could use a few more like him to get this country going again.

[Mildmannered]

the financial crisis could have been avoided if the Treasury Dept, the SEC and/or the Feds had been doing their job.

Toxic financial instruments were being created and publicly sold, and no one was regulating them.

[OohChit]

Spitzer should be Sec. of Treasury or appointed to indepent investigator of this mess.

[useyourbrain]

YES. YES. YES. Can someone start a viral message to gather names in support and send it on to Obama? He should not have resigned and Obama would be smart to get this guy back in the game.
He knows it better than most and is one of the GOOD GUYS. If we can deal with China, N. Korea, Iran, etc. then we can deal with Spitzer.

Bring Spitzer back!!! Start the campaign now!

[Bernique]

I second that.

[kepary]

it is such a joke to have her on a financial show, at least to those of us in the industry

[johnie2xs]

Yeah !! And your group, "those of us in the industry", have been SO very, very, successful.

Give me a f*ckin' break. How you can even think you can match this woman's innate abilities, to me, defies explanation.

[Bruupo]

Look at kepary's profile. Read their comments.

Read like an industry insider to you?

Or just another dittohead, and not a well spoken one at that.

[bbbbmer]

Honey, it was y'all 'in the industry' that got us into this mess! Huffington is formidable and has an understanding of the marketplace shell games y'all played in the context of its impact on Americans of the most modest means. It's YOU who are the 'joke'!

[Bruupo]

Check out kepary's profile, and then tell me if their comments look like they were written by anyone on Wall St.

[mbsq]

BS. She talks about it from the standpoint of political ideology and reports in the news. She does not have a technical understanding of it, nor does she know all that many details.

[Bruupo]

What isn't a joke to those of you "in the industry"?

Anonymous posts claiming qualified expertise or relevant memberships mean very little, less and less as they increase in brevity.

You also happen to have made just under 300 comments here, NONE of which is longer than a single epllisized run-on sentence, ALL of which are written in text-message formality, and NONE of which comprises anything more than a single rehashed wing-nut talking point or lame fail at humor.

Not a single one of your comments about any issue reveals anything which would make it remotely plausible that you are college educated, much less "in" any "industry". If you have first hand knowledge and care enough to make this many comments, why not include some substance, ANY substance, and try to convince someone of something?

About a quarter of your comments were about "tea parties" *chortle*

It is always the wing-nuts who think they can make any claim like that and be believed. By not having any education, whether formal or taken upon themselves, their intellectual insecurity convinces them that everyone is always full of it, so they have no compunction about telling any lie they feel lends credibility to the political stance that gets fed to them line by line by Rush.

That's why they can never regurgitate more than a line at a time.

You know who would be a joke to have on a financial show?

"Industry insider" kepary.

[luke150]

Hm, now the real jokers shout: "you are the joker"...

[useyourbrain]

Give that man a bonus! Give him two or three! He deserves it. It's not just any fool or criminal that could cause the wort world economic crisis in history bringing untold hardship to hundreds of millions, maybe war, starvation, etc. (love that "etc.") so people like this pig can make tens of millions, pay no tax since it goes to some hidden foreign account.

Tell us again how the trillions in tax cuts were going to bring jobs?

Business don't create jobs. Demand for product creates jobs. No business person is going to start or expand a business because they got a tax cut. The only way to grow employment is to grow demand and the only way to have demand is to have a working population that can afford to buy things.

If that don't make you dizzy, what does? These fukers got all their billions, put it off shore, get the benefits for the US but pay ZERO in taxes and use their tax free money to bribe our elected officials and it goes on and on.

The only way a job is created is when a business hires someone to produce a product that can be sold for more than it cost to produce.

There you have the solution. So go, do!

[melpol]

High priced call girls and high salaried female executives deserve equal status. They both work in an upbeat environment that offers the best of material comfort. But expensive call girls are more independent than the female executive that answers to a boss. Beautiful and talented hookers have their own cliental and do not need anyone exploiting them. The low end of prostitution is not as glamorous. Very few of its ladies are able to break away from their pimp and enjoy the luxury of becoming a high priced and independent hooker.

[johnie2xs]

You left something out.......­......Your point.

Geez, Louise !!! Put down that bliff.

[masanf]

It is absolutely amazing that nothng Rush Limbaugh says can be taken at face value because he is addicted to painkillers, but a guy who a)used the NY State Police to spy on his political opponents b)illegally used campaign funds to hire prostitutes and c)lied about it to cover it up is now a sage dispenser of advice and is qualified to part of an economic dream team? Honestly, how is it not breathtakingly hypocritcal to have a man who broke multiple laws and violated multiple ethics rules weighing in on the ethical shortcomings of those on Wall Street?

Another bogus claim being repeated here is the allegation that George Bush had him wiretapped­., or that his enemies ran him out of office. The following quote is a perfect example of such nonsense: "He went after corruption and was hounded out of office because of his personal misbehavior". No, he was wiretapped because NY law enforcement officials suspected he was making fraudulent wire transfers from various banks. Since he withdrew and spent almost $100,000 in funds, including campaign funds, on prostitutes, I wonder what gave them that impression?

The treatment of Eliot Spitzer as some sort of martyr by those on this site is in direct contrast to the derision showered on Republicans who supposedly created a so-called culture of corruption. This is irrefutable evidence that the left cared more about political expediency and gaining power than they ever did about ending corruption.

[johnie2xs]

Take off your tin hat, and clean out your ears. The "so-called culture of corruption" is an inherent paradigm of the Rethuglican Party....A­lways has been....Al­ways will be.

Can you say S&L crisis? Can you say Enron? Can you say "K Street Project"?

[lobear00]

Don't forget Bushes Silverado escapade

[Bruupo]

Well, unlike kepary you actually take the time to write some substance, which I appreciate.

I disagree with your conclusion, but for the most part, I agree with you about Spitzer. Even if speaks credibly about the current crisis, he doesn't have a personal integrity leg to stand on.

But in this:

"This is irrefutable evidence that the left cared more about political expediency and gaining power than they ever did about ending corruption­."

How does any party (or group) regain power from a corrupt one? Ask them nicely?

Corrupt means they don't play by the rules. The game was what it was, and the GOP made it that way. When you speak in favor of a party that has no integrity, you no longer have a credibility leg to stand on.

[madashellvoter]

II trust Spitzer more then I trust Geithner! There's something inherently wrong when one is cozying up to the people you’re supposedly regulating, Geithner work under Rubin and Summers in the Treasury between 1999 – 2001. These are the people that got Citi bank into the biggest mess. WE are supposed to trust him? For all those people who think that they morally superior, he who cast the first stone. Bring back SPITZER!!!