[lbo-talk] Volcher interveiw

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Fri Feb 12 08:22:19 PST 2010


A long FT interview with Volcher:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/780d9d64-175d-11df-87f6-00144feab49a.html

FT: You were an early supporter of now President Barack Obama.

PV: I know.

FT: How has he done so far?

PV: Well, he’s struggling in this atmosphere. There’s no question about it, but I think he’s a very intelligent man. I don’t know how he’s as unruffled as he seems to be in all this conflict, but I hope that he can still believe he can show the kind of leadership we need. This is very frustrating. I’m sure it’s frustrating for him. It’s frustrating for me. It’s frustrating for everybody that we seem to be in this kind of locked position.

I don’t know how we ever got in this position that it takes a 60 per cent vote in the Senate to do anything. I don’t know how that grew up and became – it’s nothing but a Senate rule, but how that rule –

FT: Maybe the President should be pushing through that more effectively. Lyndon B. Johnson did.

PV: Well, it’d be nice, but he needs some help from the other side, too, but I don’t want to get in that. Enough of this, but I do think the United States still at least in the early part of the twenty-first century has some special responsibilities and needs to show some leadership internationally and leadership internationally depends upon the ability to have coherent programs in the United States.

This is not just a question of the federal government or the Federal Reserve. Look at the state governments. Look at New York State. Look at California. Look at Illinois. They’re all in a big impasse. Not good, but we will survive and breakthrough all this.

FT: You’re sure of that?

PV: In time. In time.

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This is the end of the interview. Most of it is devoted to double talk about regulating financial markets.



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