![]() LLOYD BLANKFEIN: A CDO is a pool of assets-įRANK PARTNOY, Morgan Stanley, 1994-95: I think finance may have gotten too complicated for anyone to understand. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ), Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations: What is a synthetic CDO? & CEO: Somehow, we just missed, you know, that home prices don't go up forever. I think our regulators and the industry have to focus on complexity.ĭENNIS KELLEHER: But at the end of the day, people usually have a pretty good ability to tell when something's wrong. ![]() JOHN MACK, Morgan Stanley CEO and Chairman: Well, I think that it's- in many ways, is very simple. NARRATOR: -but there have been few satisfying answers.ĭENNIS KELLEHER: What goes on at Wall Street and exactly what caused the crisis and how did we get where we are- it's difficult to understand even for professionals.īYRON GEORGIOU, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission: I'm not sure I understand that point. NARRATOR: Many questions have been asked-īROOKSLEY BORN: -in contributing to the financial crisis. ![]() And whatever we did, whatever the standards of the time were, it didn't work out well.īROOKSLEY BORN, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission: I would like to ask your opinion of the role that over-the-counter derivatives played. LLOYD BLANKFEIN, Goldman Sachs CEO & Chairman: -and we regret that people have lost money. NARRATOR: Since the meltdown of 2008, there have been dozens of hearings. Blankfein, can we ask you a question, sir? Can you give the American people an accounting of how you spent their money? And do you understand why it is they're are angry at bankers? Do you have any regrets about the way you spent the taxpayers' money? REPORTER: Do you understand why they're angry? Do you have any comment? Mr. Now, if you want to have a recession, then go ahead and- and- and hammer the banks, and you know, make sure that they're- that they fail because then you'll have another recession. STEVE BARTLETT: If you want a strong economy, you have to have financial services companies that are safe and sound and able to lend and able to finance their- their customers. MARTIN SMITH, Correspondent: But what makes people upset is that - I mean, what- you know, a lot of the people that are on the streets demonstrating, Occupy Wall Street - is that the economy hasn't recovered but banks have. STEVE BARTLETT, Financial Services Roundtable: Some of our companies made a series of bad mistakes, and- and- and- and we all paid for them, including- and- and- and it lead to the economic crisis. Bankers responded by saying that the answer is to move on and get back to business. NARRATOR: In a matter of weeks, Occupy demonstrations spread to scores of cities across America and the world, calling for radical changes in the banking system. And if somebody with subpoena power was intent on prosecuting that, I don't think there's really much doubt that they would be quite successful in criminal prosecutions.ĭEMONSTRATORS: We are the 99 percent! We are the 99 percent! NARRATOR: Some protesters were calling for bankers to be prosecuted.ĭENNIS KELLEHER, Financial Reform Advocate: It is pretty clear, actually, that there was massive illegality going on. ![]() Their kids are graduating from college and are moving back in.ĭEMONSTRATORS: This is what democracy looks like! People's houses aren't worth what they paid for them. We lost 8.5 million jobs in the recession. Occupy Wall Street wanted bankers held responsible.ĭAVID WESSEL, The Wall Street Journal: Most Americans think, and with good reason, that Wall Street got bailed out and Main Street didn't. NARRATOR: The recession had destroyed $11 trillion of Americans' net worth. POLICE OFFICER: On the sidewalk! You must go on the sidewalk! OCCUPY WALL STREET DEMONSTRATORS: This is what democracy looks like! We got sold out, banks got bailed out! One morning in the fall of 2011, bankers arriving in Lower Manhattan were caught by surprise. The banks say they exist to create wealth, holding in trust our collective worth, promising to invest the trillions of dollars that stream in from businesses, pension funds and savings accounts that belong to all of us. It is the industry that led America and the world into its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It is the largest single sector of the American economy, an industry that is almost double the size of America's manufacturing sector, a business with enormous power and global reach. They work for banks, brokerages, hedge funds, insurance companies and mortgage lenders. NARRATOR: Every day, tens of thousands of workers make their way to Wall Street.
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