does that kind of continue after the war. go they come back -- >> yeah. it continues after the war. it continues during the war, which is really something. but i think it does continue after the war. there is a willingness among politicians that existed before the war to reconcile because people are willing to see, well you fought against me but we knew each other back then. the civil war brings in a enormous number of new politicians to washington who don't know about the washington code. i think some divisions exists. there are some examples of people who are around before who are willing. but most e -- especially the republicans who come to washington haven't been in congress. they don't know these guys. which i think does have an impact. other questions?

[laughter] thank you very much. thank you. [applause] it's available at the register. i personally think you should buy it. [laughter] i would be happy to sign anything. thank you for coming. i appreciate it. [inaudible conversations] you're watching booktv.

>> good evening. thank you very much for joining me in evening to talk about my newly released book "in bed with wall street" before we get this to that. i want to thank my good friend john. partners here. for graciously hosting us u this evening. thank you very much for that. i wouldn't be here if i didn't have some truly great women behind me. i want to thank my -- editor. thank you to them. i want to thank my agent. the second city publishing found me in early 2012. i wasn't even thinking of writing a book until cynthia

asked. i want to thank my publicist. as they said behind every good men there's a better woman or better women. i have a great team. most of all, i want to thank my wife. honestly, without my wife i wouldn't have had a blog. she's been amazing in teaching herself how to write code to grow the blog. again, without the blog there's no book. so most of you know me as having a background in finance. i worked on the south side of wall street for not quite 25 years. been in around wall street for the last 35 years. one thing i heard when i was trading on wall street was the they would say, larry, what is your position? and ask me that at 7:30 in the morning. at 8:15, noontime.

the position could fluctuate depending on the market. i'm sure there are many people around this town as well around washington who constantly being asked what is your position. often times it's best to find out what the other person's position is perhaps before stating your own. just for a frame -- to kind of frame the context of what my position is in writing this book, before i get in to some of the topics on the book, i think it would be helpful perhaps if i could kind of frame the context of my background. just a little bit so people can really have a sense for who i am and what courses draw the pages in this book. i'm one of eight kids. i group up in a neighborhood section of boston. seven boys. in that sort of environment, there was one thing you had to do. you had to compete. if you weren't competing you were falling behind or you

weren't involved in the game to begin with. so i was the sixth out of eight kids. again, seven boys. if you weren't competing you were getting beaten up. you had to compete. we look down or frown upon people in the neighborhood. with 250 square yard there were about 25 other kids we looked down on. maybe kids who weren't competing or worse than not competing in this plays out in this book were the kids who cheated. the kid who cheated, honestly, i'll leave it to your imagination. it wasn't a pretty sight. that was a poor part of my characteristic. there's competing growing up in a city neighborhood, riding the orange line to the boston public school. going in there and sitting in the auditorium and looking up in the hallway and seeing names like hancock, adams, -- to sit

there as an early teen the weight of the intellectual curiosity it had a formative impact an me. the intellectual curiosity of having teachers challenge me at the early time. what is your case? support your case nap plays out in this book. in short or order, i made my way to the college of holy cross. which we consider to be the finest institution in the country. with all due respect to those in this neighborhood, who go to also a great school here in washington over at georgetown. so -- but holy cross we were competing to win on and off the field. the sen of competition. but again what was they taught us? pursue the truth. pursue the truth, make your

premise, support your case, and do it. that also had a formative impact on me as i was developing. as fate have it i had the benefit of an older brother who made his way to wall street. i visited him my senior in college. and i knew in right away in is the play for me. these are my kind of people. the pace, the competition, the market, figuring things out. the intellectual curiosity. all of this sort of stuff, and i owe a debt of gratitude to larry. the king of wall street for giving me the opportunity at the early age to come on to mortgage desk at first boston. truth be told, i probably didn't appreciate just how great an opportunity that was at that point in time. but theyn't going too far on a

limb. they offered me a two-year commitment. like most young guys out of college, it was two years and get your mba. i told larry in short order the job i wanted was on the trading desk. he said you're not going to know anything for a year. get me a cup of coffee and cleep your nose clean. perhaps get a bit lucky. i got my opportunity on the trading desk. never did get the medicare a but so did be it. seven years at first boston. reputation is everything. because everybody knows each other. who is the good guys, who is maybe not quite so good.

i wanted to be checking friends and relationship to have an opportunity to do business. i ended up moving in 1990. that was a unique experience. there was a different firm than first boston. from a cultural standpoint the way the businesses were run. i became a businessmen going to bear sterns. i ended up working for an individual who, honestly, i think, the single best guy to work for on wall street. i'm happy to mention his name. kevin met the -- meant the world to me. we shared a value system.

i followed kevin all around to jpmorgan chase. i wanted to expand my skill set. i was a trader for 15 years. i didn't want to be a round peg in a round hole. how do i continue the intellectual curiosity from my formative years understanding different sector. market. to me it was a way of growing my career. if i needed to take a step back in order to take steps forward it was a prudent approach. the world got very interested in 2004, 2005, 2006, and beyond. i left jpmorgan in early '06. whether it was define intervention or not, who knows. at that point in time, honestly, there were definitely signs of cracks in the system.

could i have projected what would have flayed out two and a half years later? no. i couldn't. but there were definitely sign of stress. and so i -- as a result of that, i was in no rush to go take a job in another large bank. you can oftentimes get to the largeback -- banks but it's difficult to get back out. they put the handcuff on you. i was afforded the opportunity to leave jpmorgan, which i took. to start pursuing entrepreneurial activities both from a business and not for profit. a friend of a friend here in d.c. asked me to explain to hid us yens at the blog what happened with leeman brothers. i wrote a commentary. 50 people responded to the commentary. that, to me, was indicative of

the appetite in the demand for explained to us what was going on on wall street. so i wrote the commentary and got an e maul -- equal number of responses. i realized if i want credibility as a writer, i need to put my name out there. i can't just be some other sort of pseudonym. if i want the readers to say i believe in this individual, i have to put my name out there. i introduced myself to the blogosphere and said this is who i am. this is my background. and really what motivated me at that point was the idea of i could be of service. the idea a body of knowledge about the shadow banking system, the technicals in the market, the fact that this securetized market i was in represented between of the credit that

flowed in to the economy. that's meaningful. in the fact those markets to a large extent shut down in 2008. and i knew what the ripple effect it would have on the economy as whole. >> this is what initially mote elevated me to start writing the blog. i knew what happened on wall street. i knew why it happened. what that was what intrigued me. i set aside my afternoon mid jan 2009 to watch the conformation hearing thinking it's going to be great political theater. hopefully we will learn something.

honestly after 90 minutes i realized -- and tsh i turned off my tv and said i'm going start to learn stuff. i started looking in to the organization called fin are a. when i worked on wall street, the you needed to keep your nose clean was the national association of security healers. i was not i ware it merged with the regulatory arm of the new york stock exchange. i'm thinking who is this?

investors defrauded in the security market. and i started questioning, like, how was it that they had an instewtively i was thinking they must have lick dated funds. i started going down the path. i continued down the path. in the summer of 2009 my blog

really started to take off after i saw a case that was file. i read the article in bloomberg. the securities i called the law firm bringing the case. it came to the offices. and i initially spoke to bill anderson, and to john the fella that writes the blog. indeed i am. he said, you're look at the same stuff we're looking at. i said how about that? and continued to track that case. had the good fortune of meeting john and bill and colleague richard greenfield at the court house in the fall of '09. what blew me away of aside from myself and one reporter from bloomberg the that cases weren't being fully covered. wait a second, this is

literally, i mean, the vortex of where wall street and washington and the regulators come together are rivetting case asking incredible questions that go toward explaining a lot how brad practices played out on wall street. my adrenaline was flowing like never before. and i had a voice my wife would caution me. you better be careful before you hit the send button. i was but going back to the principles that developed know your stuff. know your stuff. document it, connect the dots. john said what about the other case that being one for standard investment charter. i don't know anything about the case. we have other stuff to talk

about. i started concurrently running down the security path. the standard investment charter path. learning about whistle blowers who were ignored, intimidated or fired. and thinking, you know, this is wrong on so many levels. i'm got a voice. i'm going to embrace these people. allow them to utilize my blog so they can not only speak their own voice but find kindred spirits going through the same tremendous -- travails. i was very happy to have watched the blog. if there wasn't a blog there wouldn't be a book. continue down all these paths, when i think of it. i think 2008 there was only one year it could be compared to. it was 1929. although there are many agencies and entities where it's in this

town or new york or elsewhere around the country, that we're trying to, you know, trying to get the economy going. that's important. the economy obviously impacts all of us. the basis of the economy is trusting confidence. where do we get trust and confidence? we get it from the truth. that's it. this is isn't a republican issue or democratic issue or independent issue. we need the truth. and again, you know, so i just continued to deep dive in to the legal briefs or the investors actions and you know what is the deal? and the deeper i u dove, the more intriguing it was. but i had a blog and it was great but then kind of changed in late 2011 and 2012. i exchanged notes with bill. bill has written some fabulous

books. bill, to me, had a unique space in the literary world because there have been some great books written on finance. bill was the only one from the south side who wrote in an aggressive fashion. of it not an overpopulated space. we had coffee on the upper west side. compared notes and said you should think about writing a book. i was like, i have a lot of archived material, where i do even start. i don't know. the last thing that i would share was one of the security investors, again, i got a call yesterday. my daughter is sick. said i need to put you in touch with al lewis who is a dow jones reporter. i spoke with him. about 20 minutes in to the conversation said do you mind if i hit the tape button right

now? let roll. and 36 hours later, my story about, you know, my background and the blog hit the news wire, and all the sudden the traffic on the blog spikes. it was a good thing. i got a call from cynthia. i'm with second city publishing. how come you haven't written a book. i said, wow. and i said, okay what is entailed in writing a book? and he said this is what you've got do. the proposal, outline, the chapters, the marketing. i said i think i've got a great story. and i really believed that. what she impressed upon me was the book probably would never happen if it weren't for the platform of that blog. and just the connections through the blogosphere that had brought me to when -- many of you today and the in the past. i look around and i'm going meet

daniel from the project of government oversight in her colleague michael, who i think is out there. i mean, i initially engaged the folks. i think it was early 2010. because i started to read some of the materials they had worked on in materials of whistle blower protection. i said, these are good people doing the right thing. i engaged them. we had fabulous dialogue. standing up for whistle blowers and the fact that people out there a lot of people said how come nobody on wall street have spoken. there have been people spoken. they're ignored, fired, or ignored. it's happened not only at junior levels but also happened at very senior levels. these are stories i want to bring to bear in my book. these are details that the american public, in my opinion, needs to know.

these are historic cases that get to the core of the wall street washington dynamic. and the fact that, you know, the self-regulatory system is not in the best interest of our economy. i'm thrilled with the reception the book has received to date. but again, you know, i'm adjust mouthpiece. this really is the story of individuals who i wanted to give a voice to and explain in laymen's term in a narrative inspect is an easy read. it's a couple of hundred pages but for serious students, there is about 150 refer documents

totaling almost 20,000 page. there's a historical perspective. i went back to the late 1800s. went through the depression in the 1930s. it gives a historical perspective but also lay out some pointed reforms some challenging reforms that, in my opinion, people in this town should be challenged. what do you think of this? these are serious issues. it's very serious time. and ultimately, you know, this is for, you know, writing for my kids and all of our kids. our kids deserve better. they really do. this is a serious book. i'm sure there will be some people that won't appreciate my having written this. but you know what? too bad. on that note, i thank you, again, for coming here this evening. thank you your interest and

support. i certain would like to open it up for any sort of q & a. [inaudible] [applause] >> the book has a cover that equal to its content. and so i would suggest that so you show the cover. because it's downright witty. >> well, i appreciate that. and i have to give credit to the design people at mcmillen for dining that. we went through a fair number of -- tights for this book. ult -- ultimately with "in bed with wall street" that nails. the first person to use that phrase -- at least for purposes of this book was on february 4th, 2009. a fellow by the name of harry

gave testimony right up there on the hill and when he graded the fcc worthy as an a plus in confidence. the followup was, harry, why didn't you bring the information to finra? his response was, i believe finra is in bed with the industry and deserving of an a plus in corruption. that's a strong statement. it's a strong statement. and i don't put throughout lightly. i mean, all too often nowadays people can throw out high -- ier. -- i to me the question isn't really about more regulation versus less regulation, it's about the appropriate regulation with real regulators. that's the key issue.

you need people who are not captured by the industry and can sit across the table whether it's jamie diamond and said these are the rules. this is how we're going operate. those are difficult conversations but, you know, that's what our country needs. to me, i mean, this is why the massive disconnect between wall street and main street. i told somebody today, you know, the main street and wall street is the federal reserve. unfortunately right now it's a one-way street. that's unfortunate, but when you look at the statistics the numbers don't lie. [inaudible] ..