>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." is thed blankfein ira chairman and ceo goldman sachs

appeared he'd steered his firm through the global financial crisis in 2008. goldman sachs is hosting the north american energy summit in new york city and takes a look at how the country can be environmentally responsible and profit from the north american shale revolution. i'm pleased to have lloyd blankfein back at this table. you work without a jacket, correct? tell me about the summit because everybody is excited about the shale revolution. so what does it mean? what will it change? >> a lot is going to change when you think of the u.s. being as close as it is to energy sufficiency and not having to be a net importer of energy. think the history of the last 40 years, the arab oil embargo when it was driven home how dependent we are on foreign oil and all the way the last 40 years. imagine how different things would've been -- and imagine how

different it will be over the next generations that we can get this right and make north american energy sufficient in terms of the economy and the geopolitics. it is quite a blessing, but the benefits of that blessing do not come automatic. >> what do we have to do? thee have to reconcile people who are only thinking in terms of the environment and in terms of supporting the economy and get some sort of accommodation between him two, both of whom are right, but it is a question of -- one wrong, one right. both are right. but accommodation has to be made so people can make the kinds of long-term investments that allows us to receive the benefits of the energy situation and those benefits are growth and jobs. >> we will talk about that bit in terms of rules, congressman the roles? >> congress.

it has a lot of competing jurisdictions. our record in two be exporters of -- to be exporters of l&g? and keep this in this country which will allow users of energy to make the long-term billings of dollars investment and plants that may only receive a return after 10 years or more, or are we going to distribute it it wills in which case lower the price of energy around the world in which case there is no incentive to move your business to the u.s. licensing, being able to get these things going, pipelines, which are not an unbridled good because they raise environmental concerns. but if done well, properly regulated and if it does not take a lifetime to get those things off the ground, we will get the benefits in our lifetime. >> you are in favor of the keystone project? which i am in favor --

brings us to the point of this conference which is to bring a lot of interests together who have strong appearance and get them to engage in a constructive dialogue so we can reach an accommodation. >> you do not want to be against/for -- but understanding? >> exactly. we would like to be an honest broker, a catalyst. havenally, i think we can pipelines and do them in the right environmentally sensitive way. thethe benefits of the boon economy and at the same time take advantage decks make sure that they are done and the way that -- in a safe way. in fact, you have to do both of those things. it is not a winning game. it is a get along game. side, if the people only interested in it, growth got their way of everything, who would make a long-term investment without thinking in the back of their minds, that gee, will this regime be stable

into the next administration? if you were making a bet that you will never be able to develop these energy resources or transport these energy resources, who would make a that on the basis of that? --- make a bet on the basis of that? i think you have to have a compromise not so much because splitting the baby is a wonderful thing but the only thing that will be stable in the long run, and the point to make here is that the benefits of these investments can only be realized after a long period of time. once you make the investment, you cannot withdraw. >> to make a huge investment, businesses have to have rul es. >so they can expect the kind of return that takes place over a number of years. >> once you make an investment, you may be locked into that investment for decades. every day, you differ that investment day by day.

it is hard to make an investment decision. you would want to know those rules under which you are laboring will be there for a long time. >> should one rule of governments around the world, try to create environment in which you have rules and regulations and economic opportunities so that it is an incentive for business to invest? >> i think an incentive, but again, you have to take account of the fact that not only want to invest but we want to leave the right kind of world to our children and want to be able to breathe and have clean water and a good lifestyle. so you want to incentivize people to invest in sensible projects that are done in the most environmentally safe way. >> has that happened over the last 25 years? there ise thing, another element -- people have to agree on the facts or agree on a band of facts so that. so for example, there are arguments back and forth of how much more environmentally

friendly natural gas is. if you burn natural gas it is more friendly than burning oil, but if you do not transport it properly, then it releases methane which is worse than oil. so the answer would be let' gauge natural gas with a set of develop mening its and its transportation that is done in a way that does not allow methane to escape. that ifhey can do everyone focuses and does what is necessary and has the right rules, it can be done? >> right. if one side manages to get permitted without those requirements, that's a very hollow victory because on the long run you know you will have to do it in the right way. you might as well have the rules set so that you and your competitors have to do it in the right way now so that you can make that investment as a durable investment. >> how much power does goldman sachs have in terms of

washington and in being able to see the kind of rulemaking it wants, that it thinks is advantageous? >> all our power. we have influence but in a geopolitical terms, it is the softness of the soft power. the soft influence. we lend our voice. we are like a university. we have research people on the macro side, on the corporate side. we put out ideas, we take, we extend our ideas, we show initiative. at the end of the day, we do not have the power to execute them. >> it is mostly because of the research and analysis and mostly the way you want to see the way the world is going so that you reasonable decisions with a fair understanding of the risk. >> sure. at the end of the day, all of our activities -- correlate with

growth and gdp. we are in favor of sustainable growth and gdp. it is no good to have a spike in growth in every -- and have everything not go forward. bestu want to have the projection of the fortunes of goldman sachs, i would ask you, well, where's gdp going? yes, we are interested in growth and we are interested in the benefits that flow from growth like job creation. we are financiers of creativity. we have good relationships with the people who need capital. and we have good relationships with pools of capital. we analyze needs input, we raisingd by culling out money for them by lending them money or financing, sometimes using our own capital and sometimes doing an ipo. that will draw in investors.

>> has anything changed about the businesses, the description you just engaged in, as a consequence of the recession we went through in 2008? >> i think there is a lot more focused on us. there is a lot more regulation, a lot more oversight. there is a lot more process, both internal to goldman sachs and external to goldman sachs, making sure that things are well-complied. for example, when we go out and validate an investment we are very transparent about what we do. rules that govern what we can say about certain things at certain times, making sure that both sides of an issue are explored. yes, there is more process and there is more scrutiny oversight, but basically, the substance of what i said what our role is in the world isn't it in a year -- an intermediary between people who need capital and pools of capital, that

role has been a necessary role for financial history. >> talk about this conference you are having and what might come out of it. how fast will the shale revolution, and stream? -- come on stream? >> there are number of consequences. one consequence already with the state of regulation as it is with the ambiguities that exist, begin see part of the revolution has already been felt. there is a lot more energy becoming available, oil and natural gas. we are well on our way, not being independent because we do not have the right fuel in the r ight places, but towards energy sufficiency. when we talk about this we do not just talk about the u.s. we talk about north america and the continent. which rings up the question of whether you ship it from canada to the united states which is -- most of the exported from

canada. the production side, we're are seeing that already. right now it is production overconsumption. what's lagging now is not the ability to get it out of the ground, what is lagging is using it. so, it is an interesting thing -- it is not intuitive. when you go out and you frack and do these activities and pull it up, you can turn around and sell it very quickly. your return on investment occurs very quickly if you are the developer or the producer. if you are the consumer, and you have to go out and plan and build a factory, a chemical plant for a couple billion dollars or more, you may not get that return on investment for 10 years or more. and so there you have to see her, you have to have a wide runway of seeing ahead and seeing the price is going to be

low and stable. you know what the rules are going to be. really, it is much easier to develop and produce it. those statistics rise. what we are not seeing is the plants and manufacturing jobs. i think that is where the rules and regulations come in. >> the shale revolution will affect china. they will have their own capacity. >> sure. capacity,, our shale to the extent that we are taking more natural gas and oil out of the ground it means we are importing less from the middle east. china imports more oil from the middle east than we do. there is a million reasons why we have a lot at stake in the stability of the middle east, but one of them had to have been the fact that it was a main, a of energyce supplies. to the extent that we are not the major importers o of that o, but rather, it is going to

china, you will see other powers in the world have a stake -- >> will it diminish the influence of saudi arabia and qatar and other countries that are oil or gas-rich, and russia? >> there is a race. there is more supply coming and more demand coming. the thing that is more stark -- is not so much there will be demand that will match the new supply, but different customers. that will have geopolitical consequences. >> who? >> china. and emerging markets. >> they just signed a big deal with russia. >> absolutely. the russians and chinese were rivals in a lot of ways. now, then they have to transact and it is in their interest to do so. the russians are looking for new markets and the chinese are looking for supply. and we are not competing in the same way because we have our own supply. those are some of the consequences that will develop over time.

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>> how far out into the future

do you think you can see? >> i am in the risk management business why do not see -- i can only see four inches into the future. i'd say -- >> but your firm has a reputation of being pretty good at understanding the future and being able to make some analysis as to about what risk to take? >> i will confess to you that what i think we aspire to is le3ss foresee the future and more be a great contingency planner, because -- and sometimes your plan really well and you can respond very fast to what is happening because you have thought through all the possibilities -- you can get off the mark so quickly it looks like you fault started. when all you really did was listen closely. it is hard enough to predict the present.

it is hard to step out of your context and see what is happening. i have news about the future. a very good risk manager if you let what you think was going to happen have too great an influence on what you plan for and protected against. we contingency plan. what might happen, what could happen. >> what is your core competence? >> personally? >> yes. am athink i have, i highly functional. i. paranoid. if i have overstated, the highly functional part i'm sure i'm paranoid. to worry about stuff. when the phone rings too late at night or two early in the morning i'm going, oh my god, what happened? i have to answer. if it stops ringing, i call everyone i knew it worked to find out what i missed. about, i have the

unhappy like to have to spend 98% of my time worried about the 2% worst contingencies. >> when you look at the world today, how is it change the most dramatically in the last 10 years for you? the role you have? >> i have been ceo of goldman sachs for 10 years and president for three years before that. my last 10 years does not have much of a conversation without talking about my roller goldman. >> my point is whether the world that goldman existed in has changed. is it different because of changes in global circumstances. >> the firm evolves. if you go back a dozen years, we were a much smaller firm, much more domestic very we were 15 years ago a very private partnership. we were a small firm with

hout access to markets. at that time we became a public firm. one of the biggest differences is we were always in the business of getting advice -- giving advice as a result of having our balance sheet in being able to raise capital ourselves. we cannot only advise people on what to do, we could provide financing. that is a big difference. as the world has developed and grown, we have grown with it. 15 years ago, the ceo of goldman sachs did not have to go to china two or three times a year or india every year or brazil or some of these countries. as these countries have grown around the world, a lot of what we do -- i start the conversation by saying that a lot of what we do, the success we would have correlates with growth. we chase growth around the world. we not only chase growth that exist but we try to drive growth wherever we go. >> if you look at the global economy there is a recovery

going on. there is a recovery around the world. at the same time, everybody talks about we need more growth. the question is -- why have we not had more growth and what do we need to do to incentivize growth? >> well, we are having growth. we had a very big shock. which financial shock, has other consequences associated with it because when you have shock to the financial system there is an aversion -- there is an aversion, more conservatism. people of kenya like cash. cash.ple accumulate interest rates around the world are hovering around zero and in some cases below zero. people cannot find enough opportunity to take cash that is offered to them at no cost and deploy it. >> why is that? >> because -- >> why is that? >> well, i think sentiment is -- people make the mistake, they give the nobel prize in economics. but it is not a hard science.

you are dealing with sentiment and people and when sentiment changes -- >> people have won nobel prizes for measuring. >> they measure it and do statistical analysis. the fact of the matter is, you can have a change in sentiment and from one miniature the next it not only changes the world view, it you race is your memory of what you used to think. people entered into 2007 very enthusiastic and boyant. they left 2007 depressed. it is not just the economic sentiment. look at the poison politics in washington. we got there and we can get out of that situation. >> the core question for me -- i asked you this earlier -- what is necessary to give the confidence for those people who ero get money at z interest-rate rate and have already a lot of money in the bank and not spending it? is it because they are unsure about the future.

what is the threat to the future they worry about? >> we just started to have recently after a low-level activity, we have a wave of m&a. >> a lot of it in my business. >> people are sitting and watching and waiting. and nobody wants to take any risk. anytime something goes wrong, you want to kill the person that made the mistake to consider such an aggressive and poison moment in time. everybody is sitting on record levels of cash. somebody does a deal. oh my god, i wish i had done it. now, yesterday i'm thinking, boy, it is really risky if i do something. now somebody else did something. hell, i'm a ceo. i had better do something, too. if i do not do something -- describing how sentiment can suddenly change and people look to that. reckon level of cash -- record levels of cash. on the one hand, why aren't people using?

there are activists that are going and say, listen, you have so much cash. if you do not use it and return it to your shareholder and let the music, all of a sudden people say, i had better do that. >> that happened at apple. that is something you could see going on in a lot of places. >> so sentiment can shift. it does shift, no one will remember that it was different it week earlier. peoples mindset shifts. >> why does it shift? >> we are talking about the human condition. topicsway, these are that people have ruminated about forever. why is there a business cycle? trees don't grow to the sky. why be surprised. so interest rates are hovering at very low levels now. does everyone know that they will eventually revert to a higher level, the interest rates will not say just about zero, once consensus reaches a conclusion the economy is growing and the minute - -the demand for money increases?

people suffered big losses and be shocked when interest rates go up? >> yes. >> yes. why? --does that mean you remain notwithstanding how much you are a paranoid -- an eternal optimist because you know the interest rates are going to go up? >> well, it is a separate thing. i have been doing this long enough. look, i do not know just the things in front of me. i know about world war ii even know what happened before was born. i know history. people think one thing and they revert back again. same. will not be the when things are good for a long time -- by the way, it is not unrelated. there is a reason there is a cycle, too. when things are going really well, despite their best efforts, people get complacent and complacency sews the seeds the nexthe seeds of

crisis. no matter what you say to yourself, when the next crisis strikes, how many people are theng, boy, i missed opportunity to buy that waterfront property when we had the last turn down? >> how many people went out and bought a lot of waterfront property? no one. >> but the very next time it happens, i'm going to do it. well, the next time that crisis knees will bee ir knocking together and you will not do it. >> this is fascinating. what is it that makes us not willing to -- when we know things will get better from 2008, it is not going to go down forever. we know it will come back. why don't we do more? or is it only the smart ones who do more? >> that is why warren buffet does so well. it sounds so simple after he heard it. >> he always says he buys when the times are the worst. >> it seems like he manages to do that. by the way, he writes op-eds about it when he doesn't. it is not like he is doing it in a subterfuge -- you took some of his money.

>> i are. i had to give it back -- i borrowed it. >> you needed the idea of it is confidence. >> a number of people came to us afterwards. this was the week after lehman brothers when everybody was fretting about whether the capital markets were open. and this was before tarp. and we did a transition with $5ren buffett and got billion. the very next day did a common equity deal. with warren's money, we got the validation of somebody who is regarded as a terrific investor and somebody who knew our firm. and that was an important imprimatur from him. people called us afterwards and said, gee, i would've done that. but with you i would have just gotten money. with more and i got something

more important. >> a lot of people said to him at the time., i would've made that deal anybody would've made that deal, which means he is a very savvy negotiator as well. >> this negotiation to 35 seconds. >> yes. he defined the terms and you said yes. >> you know something? there were reasonable terms. >> how frightened her urine 2000? tim geithner writes about hearing your voice. >> we were very nervous. if he were alive, you were nervous. gosh, look,oh, obviously were able to borrow money and do transactions on our own, it was not that the capital markets were closed and you never know. what what i have to tell you -- we ensure against risks in our business. yournsure risks in personal life that are 2% risk. cat cousin, aa

failure that would have caused our own federal, was that only 2% or 4%? people are saying, i am sure the systemic risk would not have gotten to a level where there would've been a series of dominoes and failures that would affect everybody. what do you mean? it was less than a 50% probability? 30%, 20%? when you think about what was at stake, how much of a risk as a probability would've had to have been to you -- for you to pay a price to ensure that risk? the regulator said officials did a very good job. they will get excoriated for because the world is not blow up. it did not blow up -- because they took the measures they took. if they had not. you have to get into this debate about whether the world would have come to an end or not. no. how about there was something -- some more than insignificant possibility --

isn't that enough when you are responsible for the financial condition of the country and the planet? >> you see paulson and bernanjke geithner made good decisions. >> they made great decisions in the fog of war. there is no doubt in my mind that people writing their dissertations will say they should've gone three degrees more or less or three degrees to the right. or driven this are driven that. waited another week. mes, given the moving parts, and the courageous decisions they made knowing they were going to get criticized, i think it is pretty petty to faul thyt them. >> have we improved the system so it is unlikely it could happen again or will it always happen again because people grow from crisis to confidence and overconfidence? both are right.

i think we have improved the system to make it a loss less -- a lot less likely. but at the end of the day, the definition of enough time, the definition of insanity is that not every -- that everything can happen, it is that everything will happen. given enough time, everything will happen. have some of the things we implemented that make the world safer make the world safer from the 20-year event and actually makes it more dangerous for the 50-year storms. if you make everybody go to a clearing house, it will make it moderately that a problem will cause a financial -- because everyone have the protection of the guaranteed clearinghouse. if you have an event that is so big that it puts the clearinghouse in jeopardy, the once every 50 -- so i think you have to do everything. you have more vigilance, more rules, more oversight, more consequence if that fails to

achieve the right result in a way of digging yourself out of a situation if all else fails in a way that protects the public the best. if you're asking me, could i imagine scenarios in which we get into difficulty again, when -- unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon. when you are dealing with credit. don't forget. currency and the financial markets are by fiat. when people stop believing things, at the end of the day if a company has a crisis, if an grounded orets leaks happen and you question whether the company is run well or not and you pull to a service station and the gas is 2 centwsa cheaper, to you by the gas? sure. in a financial institution where i make payments to you because i'm getting the payment from

somebody else, and if somebody doubts your solvency and the payment that i have to make does not come in from the other side, you get a domino effect and a c hhain reaction because it is all confidence. that is why financial institutions and markets are different than everything else. we have a federal reserve system some people call into question whether we should -- but there are central banks in the world and the federal reserve system in the united states because everyone always thought they needed to be a lender of last resort. ts shaken tofidence ge have a balance big enough, i will put the question of confidence out of reach. >> that is exactly what they did. that is what the central bank did in europe. >> you know something? people will say, should we have done it? it worked. so now you can quibble because it worked. if we had not done it, we could be in a different situation. by the way, why do we have the federal reserve? because we had a problem like

this and a panic for every few years in the 19th century. daysink gone are the when the banks of jpmorgan could stride on the floor of the new york stock exchange and say i will buy 10,000 u.s. steel and everybody says we are saved. the world is too big. the balance sheet of the world is too big for that now. it takes the government to take care of it. nobody should rely on it. and people should be punished if they ultimately do need to rely on it. but taking, anyway -- >> here is what is interesting. you think about the fact that china. tot from double-digit growth expectations of around 7%. correct? but it now has the largest economy in the world, or close to it. what is going to be the consequence of that? >> well, you know, you can look in the worst terms, the u.s. has a competitor. in the best terms, there is no

locus -- as a market. likeway, gdp and growth is , increments to gep is like increments to oil. if they found oil anywhere in the world, it is wonderful the the country that discovered it, but that gets added to the world supply. it reduces of oil anywhere. you add supply and demand stays the same. the price goes down for everyone. is a windfall for the country that built it, but it benefits everyone. the same thing with gdp. if china grows its gdp in the chinese get richer, of course it is a wonderful thing for china, but what will they do with their riches? percentage of their riches they will buy goods and services -- they will buy iphones. goods and services the united states produces and that will be good for us, too. when you add a resource into the world, a commodity, whether it is energy or wealth, it is good

for the person who acquires it ultimately it trickles across the world and is good for everybody. >> so it is not a zero-sum game? >> no. when wealth is created -- the financial system in this country and globally does two things. victims generate the wealth and it helps to serve to distribute to generate a well-funded helps to serve to distribute it. people buy things. some of the things they will buy from us. if they are not buying enough, maybe it is because they have restrictive policies or maybe we do not make things they want. >> take me to emerging markets like brazil. what happened to them? termown guy coined the bric. oneaid to me at this table, characteristic of an emerging market is a developing middle class, yes? what happened so that their growth has stalled for brazil

and some other emerging markets? >> it stalled. i would not bet against it. risk, when something is new and fresh and something is growing at a fast rate off a low base, you will get a lot of volatility. the 20th century -- >> you create a new buying class. >> it goes in fits and starts and gets overextended and then it consolidates. look, the 20th century was a great center for america but every year was not a great year for america. 2007, the great depression, 10 years. it was an awfully good century but we had a lot of bad years. i think if you walk away from brazil now in 2014, you may lose the last 86 years of their century. >> but when you look at china in terms of what they are doing, there are those that argue -- back to your energy summit -- that north america, if in fact shale revolution takes place

as we hope in all the developing industries and the jobs, will have an economic engine that will drive the global economy more than asia. >> no. again, it is not a competition. we will drive the global economy and they will drive the global economy. >> there are metrics? >> let's look at it this way. united states, people are debating how fast the united states is growing an. some people think it is growing at 3.25%. well, the chinese economy, as you said, is almost the size of the u.s. economy and there we are debating about whether it is growing at 5% or 8%. that's a bigger different. again, when you look at growth, it gets added to the world. the consequences of china getting it right. by the way, 5%, they could go south of it or north of 8%. the consequences of them getting

it right or wrong sooner rather than later is a law or growth added to the world and what people are debating about as realistic for the united states. it is a very, consequential. with china, china's entering into another phase now. before, they were going for growth at all costs. so growth at all costs-- >> pollution. >> you run those factories. you keep them going. at some point, you, you are rich enough and you want to brief. >> they had a lot of corruption, too. >> a lot of corruption. look, when things are growing quickly and they build 80 airports all at once they may put a few of them in the wrong place. >> buyt at the same time, when they're standing committee makes the decision and they carry the decision out. ate capitalism can work here at >> i think they have as much debate and dissension as we have. from where we're sitting, it looks monolithic. isn't that wonderful it easy. i can tell you how it works in

our shop. i may be chief executive officer, but i also have to cajole and beg. >> i do not believe it for a moment. >> of course you do. there is a lot or -- maybe democracy is the wrong word -- but there is a lot more defense of opinion and input that goes on in china than we see. maybe it occurs within the party or behind closed doors. >> they have arguments. >> they have arguments, too. like everybody else. >> we live in a global economy in which we are seeing more wealth than we have ever seen before. lots of people are writing books and having conversations about income inequality and they are concerned about the consequences of the top 1% perpetuating itself and getting richer and richer and there is a division so that all boats are not rising. >> sure.

of say that recently, first all, this is been going on for 30 years that there has been -- by the way, that does not relieve us of the problem, it compounds the problem that has been going on for decades where richer fasterw than the poor have been catching up. that is a problem. that is a destabilizing thing. i am not sure i understand all the reasons why. anything that exists, i can offer an explanation, but if you give me that's the nation i would not have predicted where we would be. at a point in which there is great technological change, in addition when you have a flat world where whoever makes the best product, everybody buys it from it. when anybody offers cheap labor, everybody goes there and manufactures. you get a winner take all kind of world. that is created - - has created the schism we are seeing.

it is destabilizing. >> i understand all that. the same time, take a look at this. i will give you a couple of clips of people that have been on the show. you know one of them. christine lagarde talking about the imf and making income inequality policy issue. here it is. >> we are looking at income inequality because we believe it is macro critical. in other words, it is raising a point where it is really, can have a destabilizing and detrimental impact on the growth of economies and on economies in general. we've done to critical studies in my view because we are looking at it not from a political or ideological angle. we are just trying to understand the facts and the relationship and the correlations. is two studies are one inequality excessive hurting growth?

yes. is hurting sustainable growth. the second study we did which was a against conventional wisdom is redistribution policies are redistribution policies a brake on growth? everybody assumed for a long time that if you do redistribution then people will not be attracted to producing more, earning more, doing more, because "the more" is going to other people. >> you admire her. >> i admire her. she is defining the problem. i am not hearing a solution. you know what i think the best we decision -- best redistribute policy would be? we have a tax system. for us to spend more money and have an effective educational system. that would be a great redistribution. take tax revenue of which i pay

a high percentage and poor peop it to take, and use advantage of. which i will not take advantage of because my kids go to private school. >> why don't we do it? >> i don't know. a lot of other people believe that unless people like you and the government and others come together, we will not get our hands around and i mean equality and we cannot. >> we are very -- look, it's a gee, that people in business rb plutocrats smoking big cigars. >> we are not talking about that here at >> it has a little bit of it. again, i feel this very strongly. i think it is a shame that our education system is in the shape it is. we started the conversation talking about energy. there are things we can do. the poison politics make it very hard to legislate. see legislation

done that would let us take advantage of the blessing that we have been handed, lower energy costs and revitalize manufacturing and jobs that come with manufacturing in this country. i would like to see that. that would help -- >> this is not a cute question. are you doing everything you know how to do to push those ideas forward? >> are you? >of course. right now i'm talking to you. >> i do think these are important questions. i do not think we are getting our hands around them enough. we have to ask ourselves, is this gap between rich and poor growing? and are we doing enough in a s ense to find waste to education and lots of other means so that so many people are not falling below? >> we published on the topic. i have one vote.

i have been shrill on policy issues. >> do you think i am being naïve? >> no. come on you are not naïve. . i think it is a bit of a cliché. because we are in capital markets and bankers must think in a certain kind of way -- i know you know. we have worked together on certain projects where we are. a problem with our political democracy right now that we cannot get certain things done. >> the tax -- reform the tax structure. >> we cannot pass tax -- >> entitlements? >> how about immigration reform come toople may want to this country because people want to start their businesses, the most talented people in the world want to start their business and we cannot do that. i am not blaming a single person. >> nor am i. i'm just saying are we doing enough?

of immigration -- clearly, you would think immigration reform. the republicans do not want to talk about it because they do not want to talk about it as an midterm issue because they want to talk about other things third it will not be a big issue in the midterm elections. >> again, i'm going to try to be -- in the interest of neutrality, i would say that there are other people who do not want to talk about, to some people immigration is policing the borders. me it is reunited families. it ought to be both. i think immigration is something that could be good because you know what? we can actually do what. a rare moment when we can get things done. >> we can allow people to have all the benefits of out of the trepreneurshipn and make sure that not too many people are falling in the cracks. education is one way but there are other ways.

>> right. getting back to your question, and i do not want to get too far away -- are we doing enough? we can all do more. personally, i will tell you what we spend a lot of time doing. we spend a lot of time investing and financing industries that otherwise might not get financed in order to create jobs and create that virtuous circle. that is in our business and personal lives. in my political life, i vote in favor of all of these things lift people out of poverty. i try to. it is a problem. it's hard to point the finger at any one thing without pointing at it everything. >> i mean, most people i know -- like you, and i think you are rare -- but most people really want to see a better country. they differ on terms of how they want to see the country better. you put a lie detector and

everybody else. everybody would say, i am only interested in what is good for the united states and people could see the opposites things and. oath would be true politics starts in this country not when somebody is wrong and someone is right. it is when everybody is right as they seek ir. i grew up --, my dad was a mailman. i grew up in the projects. >> replaced by a machine. >> he was. i once told you the story that the only time i visited my father at work he was a mail sorter. when he left, they replaced it with an automated sorter.what i thought was poignant was that machine -- they had that machine for 10 years but they had a policy of not replacing anybody but only doing it by attrition. so they could have put that doinge in and yet something a machine could have done or 10 more years and that when he left, they put the machine in his place. >> did he work overnight because

they gave a small percentage of the premium? >> when you sorted the mail by 10%, yes, he got paid a night differential. >> your mother was a secretary for security firm. >> that was the burgeoning industry in my part of brooklyn. that was the growth industry waws the worker alarm industry. industry.glar alarm >> you made to the top of goldman sachs because white? >> this goes to the heart of the other question. yada yada. i worked hard, i applied myself. i did errands, i worked hard, but guess what? i was lucky. i fell in with people who gave me good advice. i went to a good frim. -- good firm. my firm did well.

i climbed up the ladder. and it all worked out. you can be supersmart and somebody won't tak interest in or it is a bad industry. in life you have to be good, but you have to be lucky, too. us alsoave to remind this because it makes you more empathetic for the misfortunes of others. >> are you still attracted to goldman sachs the lloyd blankfeins? >> we are attracting pretty good people. whether it was lloyd blankfein or not. lloyd blankfein was not very attractive. they did not hire me. they would not have me. firm that was acquired. i came in sideways. >> how long do you want to do this? >> this interview? i could go on forever. >> we could go on. no, no. how long do you want to be ceo of goldman sachs? >> you know, like right now, and when things are going well, and

even doing this interview, no kidding aside, it is a lot of fun. i think about the influence i have, the people i get to me and i say, gosh, i would like to do this for a long time. then when things are really, really bad and i am getting pressured and attacked and i see catures of -- cara myself the newspaper i think i do not want to do this. but my responsibility requires me to go on. when things are going well, you love it. it is a hard thing to get away from. >> you're optimistic? >> also, they are hard to get. once you stop doing it -- you do not come back again. >> if it is not this, where my going to go? would you work in government, in the public sector? >> i do not think people are clamoring to have me do that. freakish reason if i thought there was a good opportunity and i could make a difference and do something good, of course i would. >> thank you for coming. >> tha for havingnks -- than for

having meks. >> lloyd blankfein, the ceo of goldman sachs. ♪

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