|
A blistering interview of Paul O'Neill, former secretary of the Treasury. He was fired.
An excerpt:
How do you feel about John McCain, who claims to be a straight talker? I don’t want a straight talker. I want a leader. And a straight talker is one dimension of a leader. ...
McCain recently confessed in public that his grasp of economics is limited. Yeah. That’s a great place to start from, isn’t it?
The full article is below the fold:
March 30, 2008
QUESTIONS FOR PAUL O'NEILL
Market Leader
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
As an uncommonly outspoken business
leader who was appointed secretary of the Treasury in 2001, then forced
out in short order after challenging President Bush’s tax cuts, are you
surprised by the recent flurry of depressing financial news? Not
really. We’ve been creating this pass of events for several years.
Do you think it was appropriate for the Federal Reserve to lend a
helping hand to Bear Stearns and save a private investment company from
its own bad decisions? I would say they didn’t save Bear Stearns.
They saved the financial system from a panic collapse. I reject the
notion that they helped Bear Stearns. Bear Stearns was destroyed.
No it wasn’t. It was purchased by JPMorgan, which will keep it alive.
They’re going to keep the book alive. But the institution of Bear
Stearns has been destroyed. They’ve gone from $158 to $2 of equity.
It’s wallpaper. It’s not even good wallpaper. It’s butcher paper.
It’s so hard to understand how the subprime mortgage crisis has triggered a financial crisis of global proportions.
If you have 10 bottles of water, and one bottle had poison in it, and
you didn’t know which one, you probably wouldn’t drink out of any of
the 10 bottles; that’s basically what we’ve got there.
Instead of helping Bear Stearns, why doesn’t the Fed help out homeowners?
It’s too late now. Going back a year ago, if the Fed and the Treasury
had set out to help the institutions provide clarity and differentiate
between good loans and bad loans, we wouldn’t have gotten to this
freeze condition.
What do you think of James Cayne, the former Bear Stearns C.E.O., who was off playing bridge as the company was collapsing? I don’t want to make a judgment. Do you like to play bridge? I like to play bridge.
But as the former C.E.O. of Alcoa and a current adviser to the
Blackstone Group, what do you make of the general decline in corporate
leadership, which seems less invested these days in the old paternal
model of social responsibility than in personal greed? To me that’s a really interesting question. It’s become very me-oriented. Ugly, ugly.
How do you feel about John McCain, who claims to be a straight talker? I don’t want a straight talker. I want a leader. And a straight talker is one dimension of a leader.
McCain recently confessed in public that his grasp of economics is limited. Yeah. That’s a great place to start from, isn’t it?
Now that you’re back in Pittsburgh, do you miss Washington? I still have a place there, at the Watergate. In my building, there’s Condi and Bob Dole.
Have you seen Dick Cheney since he fired you? I have been to a
few events where the vice president was there, but we both did our best
to ignore each other. You know, I was a pallbearer, and he was a
pallbearer, too.
You mean at President Ford’s funeral? Yes.
And you didn’t say hello? Nope. It was a good time to be alone together.
Are you ever confused with former Yankee outfielder Paul O’Neill?
I once gave a speech in New York when I said that whenever I called up
a four-star restaurant for a table, they’d fall all over themselves.
Then they’d say, “Will Mr. Jeter be coming with you?”
How did you first get involved in government? I went to
Washington in 1961 because I believed what Kennedy said. If you want to
make a difference, come here. It sounds corny, but it’s true.
Do you feel bitter about your service for the Bush administration? No. I’m thankful I got fired when I did, so that I didn’t have to be associated with what they subsequently did.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY DEBORAH SOLOMON
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed