Lloyd Blankfein: Trade Wars, Debt And Bitcoin

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An interview with the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. In this interview, Lloyd discusses the current trade war and gives his view on the action taken. Lloyd also talks about the debt market, financial crisis and Bitcoin.

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Lloyd Blankfein: Trade Wars, Debt And Bitcoin

Transcript

Well I'm delighted you brought up Fannie Mae. I was one of my great triumphs. I've made many many mistakes. I'm very happy when somebody brings up a success. What a disaster that was. And it's going to be in the future too because Washington keeps thinking and politicians keep thinking we can make everything OK. We are smarter than the market. Don't worry we'll take care of it hard next time we have a bear market or a problem in the U.S. it's going to be the worst in my lifetime Mark and I'm older than you so you should be worried. OK. OK. So looking at the kinds of measures that the Dodd Frank and its related laws and regulations brought what do you think were the most important ones was most important mistakes or the most know the most important remedial measures they eliminate all the liquid a lot of the liquidity in the markets. Next time we have a problem a lot of people who were there before buying and selling even if they were helping things go down are not going to be there anymore. So when liquidity dries up. MARTIN What do you do then you call up and say I want to sell sell the home who do you want to sell to. And there's nobody on the other side of the phone and it's kind of hard to tell you the next bear market is going to be the worst in your lifetime in my lifetime. That's one of the reasons. OK. OK. So so they did something to curtail liquidity.

When you think of all the things they did and maybe other things they didn't do what further measures if any you think the government and the regulators might have taken to help conditions even more. I cannot think of any repeal Dodd Frank. That would be the best the best hope in the best direction. Yes. OK. Do you think the liquidity would come back and be uncontrolled again if they did that. What if liquidity comes back yes or whether it's controlled or not. Why do you want to control liquidity. Markets are better off if they have their head even though it brings out mistakes and in fact that's one of the purposes of markets to bring out mistakes the way the market's supposed to work. Mark when somebody makes a mistake he goes bankrupt and then competent people come in and take over the assets reorganize the assets and start over from a sound base. The way it's working now is what happens when somebody makes a mistake the government takes the money away from the competent people give it to the incompetent people and they say to the incompetent people OK now you can compete with a competent people with their money. OK so let's let's run with this theme for a second. So would you argue that the support that the government gave to financial firms in the early days of the crisis. That was a good thing or a bad thing terrible thing. Absolute terrible thing. Yes. If they had let everybody get.

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