13 of 30
BACKNEXT
Eliot Spitzer: Utterly failed to reshape Wall Street
Eliot Spitzer: Utterly failed to reshape Wall Street
Former governor of New York

Will I claim to have been skeptical about much that was going on? Yes, I was very skeptical of the building-block pieces of Wall Street. But I won't claim that I, or anybody, could have foreseen this immediate crystallization of those problems and the system's sudden collapse. It reminds me of one of my favorite "Monty Python" lines: "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."

I hope we have learned that you can't eliminate the enforcement of basic principles of integrity -- that notion should be gone, kaput. I hope the term "self-regulation" becomes a laugh-line, not an ideology....

Putting aside the debate about whether or not Lehman in particular should have gone down, did that weekend amount to swallowing the bitter medicine we needed to? I don't think so, because we haven't paid for all this yet. At the time, of course, printing money was our best option. But that's akin to saying, "We put a tourniquet on the limb," and declaring victory.

We've utterly failed to reshape Wall Street. The too-big-to-fail survivors now just have greater market share. The response is, yes, they have greater share, but they're more risk averse. But I don't know if that's true or not.... When protected institutions are this big and unregulated and still not transparent, all we've done is socialized risk and privatized gain.

NEXT: Meredith Whitney: Shouldn't have let Lehman fail
Last updated September 14 2009: 3:19 PM ET
Email | Print | Share  |  RSS
 
google my aol my msn my yahoo! netvibes
Paste this link into your favorite RSS desktop reader
See all CNNMoney.com RSS FEEDS (close)
More Galleries
5 biggest share buybacks of 2014 Stock repurchases are booming. These five companies are ready to spend over $79 billion on buybacks. More
10 horrifying corporate mascots McDonald's Happy is part of a long lineage of creatures great and small that shill for products and mortify consumers. Mr. Mucus, anyone? More
5 best cities to launch a career The top spots in the U.S. for new grads to land a job -- and actually enjoy life -- according to financial site WalletHub. More

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.