QUOTES OF THE DAY

“Even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car.”

Neil Barofsky
“The people who designed the [bailout] plans are either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent.”

Joseph Stiglitz
“In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations.”

Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes
“…the biggest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result.”

Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention 2008
“But at some point the Obama Administration should acknowledge that this particular former CEO of Goldman Sachs is still driving the policy bus. If the Republicans are in control of the Congress come next January, maybe they should subpoena [Robert] Rubin to appear periodically. At least then we all can hear directly to the person who is actually making national economic policy.”

Chris Whalen, The World According to Robert Rubin
“On Sunday afternoon, facing a revolt by his own party’s senators, Obama dumped Larry [Summers] as likely replacement for Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

But the fact that Obama even tried to shove Summers down the planet’s throat tells us more about Obama than Summers—and whom Obama works for. Hint: You aren’t one of them.”

Greg Palast, Larry Summers: Goldman Sacked
“After dinner, Larry [Summers] leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them.

Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders.”

Elizabeth Warren