[inaudible conversations] okay let's do a little test and make sure the people in the back can hear me. good evening everybody. on behalf of warwick's welcome to an evening with our special

guest. first of all let me just think all of you. when you come out of your homes and spend your evenings with us in support for the local bookstore. it allows us to bring these people to the area.ç with a lot of exciting things still happening this summer and we have already been doing a lot of things i've set up for the fall.ç leave a packed schedule or you can check out our website or take one of the flyers that microphone is for the wonderful c-span that's here tonight.ok

i went with the team up to a bankers from lehman brothers. the star of the financial crisis. and the reason i went to china. i've been working at lehman brothers on something called the futures and options desk. which was the type of financial instruments. to the global economy. into financial markets. at the time. i was having this fight with the sales guy on the desk. because sometimes in investment banking people try to take credit for other people's work. they try to get other people on the way. there's a lot of heads that combat. i was the one right in the code. he was like this flashy kind of salesperson. and every single type i will

come up with the those whose fair trade. and i would get paid more because of it. besides that. and it got to a point where there was a lot going onç in te early '90s and i wanted some credit for the work i was doing. i was in grad school. i want to have what i did. i just went to management and said i'm in a quit. and they said why do you want to quit you're doing good. i said i can deal with this. what they decided to do was rectify the entire situation but sadness on the trip to asia together.ñr cgood ideat(ç because we wereo kill each other. the point was that was their decision. we take off on this multiple city country exposition.

winds up in china at the people's bank of china. we proceed to try to sell u.s. treasury bonds which they now have a lot. and also to juice it up with the futures and options. in the people's bank of china and everybody will be able to be happy. we did wind up being friends. it wasn't necessarily because of that. however, we wound up i think it was taiwan or something where we were to be late. we were not miss the trip.

it's like 40 minutes away. and basically the salesperson said look i will pay you a stupid amount of u.s. dollars. he jumps into on coming traffic. i think a minute die. that's how banking works. that's ultimately how i get to china. i wound up going back to china for this but to go to the same people's bank of china. and to go to the same great wall of china. the kind of do how this was done.

i was able to work the book around. and what have changed in all of these years. the influencei] it was a time fr which i will send the book. the financial systems and the banks in this kind. china did in a different way. it is the federal reserve. it is the u.s. the weight i depict the u.s. in the book. with all of the chapters in regions that require the book. to see how they behaved relative

to fed policyç and how the word sort of changed around the pivot countries over the past ten years. they're not even related to monetary policy but because of mountain terry policy and the level of interest rate that is the amount of money that they had produced. and the countries and regions are pivot areas that i went to. this all started before i started researching this particular book i had written a

book called all the presidents bankers. and that have basically the have basically coded to the history of american finance. the influence and created domestic influence and policy. for this book it was more narrow. they have this annual conference between the federal reserve. they have a day at the world bank. it's not public. there is no television there. but there are central bankers from around the world that come to talk about the issue there is a main theme. it was why wall street wasn't helping main street.

when i got the request to speak i was confused. i asked them, our you sure you met me. they said no we actually do want to hear this other side. i speak in the morning session the first day of these three days. one of the things she have basically conveyed to this roomful of central bankers from around the world was everything was fine. the banks were reformed. regulations were in place to sort of protect the american and by extent global population. there would not be a crisis again. this is basically what she said.

and then a cardinal spoke. and one of the things he said to this world --dash make room of a central bankers was i don't know anything about finance or economics or what monetary policy is. there is a world out there that could potentially be in pain. with that i came in front of this room whether they are going to raise rates or lower rates. the question is why isn't wall street helping main street. we get this. it's because you never made them.

the major central banks. never said where to give you a boatload of money. working to reduce rates and make it very easy for you to access money very cheaply. and where i can ask you for a single thing in return. they normally have the right to render why they are topping. wall street is in the background that was in exactly the business model but that was pretty much what went down. wall street gives a lot of subsidies and these subsidies become a total of four and half trillion dollars of something called quantitative easing. even mont monetary policy is a

wonky term. for governments in the country. he basically gave us money. and you bought from us two things. $1.75 trillion of mortgage-backed securities. the things that became known as toxic assets. it's not like even analyze them. you the banks have a bunch of securities that night can no longer get rid of. then i have anywhere near the value that you said to anyone and that you said. we will just pay full price on them. and that's basically what happened to the tune of 1.7 the

other part was that federal reserve created. they did a mini review of the book. they have a drinking game for the amount of times i used in my books. i don't know the case. what happened was they were able to electronically create money for which they received bonds including these in mortgages and the rest of treasury. they are bonds that are created by the u.s. treasury department. we will pay you a certain level of interest in return for you a sickly lending us for a particular term a bunch of

money. going back to china. they took us through this process. for which the u.s. government pays interest. what the fed did was it decided to conjure this money in order to buy the bonds. they create debt for basically no reason. they are the brokers. it goes back to the fed. for which they paid interest to the banks. if you cancel all that out. you save a few trillion dollars. i ultimately didn't happen throughout the world. not in a russian voting sense but in terms of an actual collusive effort. to have it work in such a way that the major banks of the world can all benefit from

having money rendered cheap. if it was just the fed that helped the u.s. banks in the fall of 2008. it would not had been enough to have our interest rates rendered 0%. and receiving interest for the bonds that they were getting. and receiving the subsidy of a four and had train dollars to continue to do what they were doing. that actually wasn't enough. it was enough financially. so what they have to do from the beginning of the financial crisis was make sure that the other central major banks they

have to get on the same page as the fed. and also engage in the bond buying process. reducing rates as they do was not enough. they have to create all of this money. and what that did was it created 22 train dollars worth of subsidies for the major banks in the major g7 countries of the world. it didn't just say in the pockets of the bank they head on average four times the amount of cash they have on buck book before the financial crisis. $22 trillion is more than the gdp of the nine states. the fed needed it to effectively save the u.s. banks.

under the guise that it was the economy of the world that they were trying to say. is still out there. it is the layer now as well as the major financial markets what is it really allowed to happen. it allows banks to say right, were going to know lend this money cheaply. let's lend it out to companies and people and so forth. and what we effectively take in. and they keep doing and doing and doing. as a result of that. the value of bonds is higher because of the relationship and prices. and then stocks go up.

give extra money that corporations had either gotten because they borrowed it so cheaply or because they have all of this extra cash for the banks. and where you take it. you don't take into government bonds. their pain like nothing. you put it into riskier assets. if not helping. in a lot of ways it has become fragmented between the individual and the companies that have been recipients of this process and ones that haven't. it doesn't matter what's one political location is. the reality as it has gone to a system of people that were involved in institutions to

begin with. and not been diffused to the rest. and given it to the real economy to the infrastructure and development projects you'd have a situation where more people were put to work. more programs with the technical people were along the way. and you have a different kind of economy that was more sustainable.çó that is what we have gotten to now.

its currency was slammed. the banking system was slammed. it got out of that by a lot of different ways. however, the have of the central bank of mexico. was part of a family of mexican officers. he went to been burning key. and he said look. it's been a potentially really hurt the financial system and confidence in their skin to be major ramifications going forward for the pure they didn't even write about him in the

memoir. he basically went ahead with this quantitative process. they try to warn people in the academic community. as some of the non- g7 types of meetings. if you create a bunch of money in you put in this and you're not regulating the system properly. he did not get reappointed to be have of the central bank of mexico because he was not saying what he should've said at the time and what been burning key is doing is very important.ç he went on to say what been burning key was saying. that has impact the impact of creating a lot of inflation in mexico with the real economic problem in mexico because he was trying to follow a fed that a very different kind of pocket.

in order to look liquefied. the bank of international settlements. it was created in the wake of the crash of 1929. to talk about how different policies impact impacted different policies. he is not more critical of the thread. in brazil, something interesting happened that going back to the end of 2008. at the time he was a major force in brazilian politics. he have an appointee who was running it.

a little bit about what the fed it was doing. he tried to raise rates in brazil. ultimately there were shifts in government. a new person that came and tried to do what the u.s. was trying to do. now he actually became the finance minister under the government. some of these individuals do resurface throughout the elite roles. he is probably not going to win the presidency but his 70 that has been around and has. from both following and not following the fed. going back to my friends at the people's bank of china.

they didn't try to follow what the fed it was doing. and this is really a ramification what's going on today. he got very publicç with the worry about the whole rate thing. it's can it hurt our countries. it was a u.s. european construct. it was supposed to represent the major currencies of the world. it included the euro which would've been the french frank.

the criticisms that were made against the policy. it goes back to what i saw in that room that day in 2015. i saw a lot of central bankers from around the world that weren't particularly public about whether their country was being hurt. in economic problems throughout the world. what they believed have to be done was more of a unified approach outside of the g7 to trading with each other to developing other currency relationships and so forth. it was a shift because of money. it was to reduce the risk that another u.s. financial crisis the world.

when interest rates rise too quickly or the fed or any of the other g7 central banks begin to really unwind or sell off some of the securities that they have bought. corporations in japan and actually ask for the money back. which the neck and ado. in the process of talking about doing a little bit creates instability. and there is a hardship for the country that they have borrowed it cheaper. that creates more economic stability. the anticipation of that. china has managed as well as other emerging markets to just develop more alliances with each other. again, in a way in which they can reinforce their own economies. so when i went to japan from china i'm going through the order of my chapters. japan is very interesting.

from a monetary policy perspective. it was a number two bank. in reducing the rates to negative. one of the things that i found their dispute on the ground. in talking to people that have been involved in the central bank. there are a lot of alliances that have been happening for years. their governments might not had necessarily bless them. talk about ways in which they could swap or trade each other's currencies. even though they have technically been adversaries. some of the shifts that were beginning to go through were actually happening because of monetary policy because of economic and financial fears.

they have become trade relationships but they began as currency and just transactional types of relationships. then no choice but to start to be mark friends with each other. when i went to europe and was just assigned a major trade agreement with japan. they've have a lot of ramifications since the monetary policy has been adopted. that could've been a whole book. one of the things that happen there was that european central bank and any central bank may choices. to use the money created to help weaker countries or stronger countries. this is not a political thing.

it was a monetary decision and a money decision as well to do things to help create german companies or french companies or the stronger part of europe to begin with. the argument was that there are better bets. five and half a trillion dollars worth of money was greeted by the european central bank to help your and chose not to help greece. has his ongoing thing with italy. and actually work with ben

burnett key on a similar policy which still exists in europe. but by making the choice of providing subsidies for the banks. in the countries and so forth evolved. that is contrary money in the is deciding to play favorites. which has other issues. from that same point of that and inequality. it manifested in the brexit vote. because one of the things that happens historically is that when ever there whenever there is economic anxiety amongst a group of people or countries or people that can look at this coming in. and damaging their own job potential. they want to vote for whatever

doesn't exist. the government's. they aren't listening and they're not helping. you sort of blame on what's what's going on around you. the next thing you do is blame the government. that weekend there were all of these people demonstrated in the streets. or lower than they had been going into the financial crisis. there was some other measure by which they were the lowest in decades. it's a very imposing building. no one is doing that because you don't really think you can march outside the fed.

the level of influence that they have is not really fully understood. in terms of what they do and it impacts impacts all of these other things. in the case of brexit when they voted to go with that. the idea is not helping them economically for different reasons. the reality is there is a lot of economic instability that was imposed on the uk. to not put into the real economy. in the father's people. there were a lot of people who

just feel very disenfranchised economically and how they choose to vote is very much a byproduct of who they think can help them. so one of the ways that we have the government shift. a lot of the swings for this. it's what banks do all the time. by definition doesn't allow. partnerships to be built better. and help everyone. gain more economic or financial stability as a result. to conclude i look at these extra factors and how they have come out of the other g7 central

banks. they are appointed. in the money that they been able to create and use as technically unlimited. they decided the fed could have stopped there. there is no actual legal imitation on any this. it can continue to have the deeper ramifications than the ones that i think are tied to the has manifested since the financial crisis. in these types of issues and connections from the same point. not creating infrastructure or project or other types of

longer-term financially beneficial and economic growth. there are high ramifications on geopolitics. another economic crisis. one of the things i read about my first book after i left wall street. it was called other people's money. if we don't change what we have this is a time of corporate scandals. that where a field of finance by the same banks that ultimately where the center of the financial crisis in 2008. morgan had a fall. hats can be tied to securities. they're not particularly understood or regulated by the people.

were not really that different right now. there is more of a subsidy that is artificially goes through the financial system. it's one of the other reasons i wrote this book to explain how this all connects. and to hopefully get more dialogue amongst people everywhere. and how we can protect ourselves and what kind of policies should be created. and people should be instituted in order to make that kind of change. i want to thank you. i would open it up to questions. and go from there. [applause]. and i just want to say that there is a mic that's going around.

if you are ahead of the fed right now what would you do. we do had rates that are so low that come up a bit. with a massive book of assets. i think what should happen is we should really do what these subsidies were supposed to have done. there is a raid to do that. and to take money that's already there and to use it which banks to every day as collateral.

as assurances for other types of finance. in order to actually build trains in bridges. and do the kind of things that technically this money was supposed to do. two everyone. what we can do is divert that capital to the stuff we said it was supposed to do to begin with. it's actually quite easy. and to different congresspeople as well as to other legislators throughout the world. it's a way to get out of this mess.

thank you. thanks for visiting us here. i like that idea a lot. we do need infrastructure for the future and there was a political situation after the subprime. we had 10% unemployment. the economy was really in horrible shape. and it was spreading around the world. after an early 2009 i think fiscal stimulus of about $780 million. and congress changed over.

they were not going to allow another dime of additional spending in terms of fiscal policy. they almost had no choice but to start creating a big money supply. there was no physical capability at this point. and on the one hand people were really worried that i was gonna be hyper inflationary. others believed that as narrow first of all. a lot of that money in the $4 trillion to make its way into the economy it was basically

sitting on banks balance sheet. fiscal wasn't really an option. it would be the more traditional way to structure it. how policy wise when that even happen. now they're trying to reverse the quantitative easing. how could a program commence whereby the banks are somehow forced into this. and to use it for infrastructure for this future. they won't do it anymore than they would over the last ten years. the way this could work is for an actual act of creating a national bank. and our country doesn't had one.

one of the ways that china has done this. not just within china but throughout its regions. rather than to put into the financial markets. for a component in states. but more so at the federal level. i've spoken with a number of senators in congress people. there is positive about it. from a conservative perspective of acknowledging that it's been over the decade.

to necessarily hurt the value. it has to be an actual act. and something there is interest in on the democratic side that it's either or. an idea that rather than having another financial crisis. if they are going to get back to any sort of normalcy. it has to be a legal construct. my existing their people from different sides of the aisle. and different sectors.

and it goes to the trains in the bridges and the ports. there is interest in trying to find a way. they are woke up to find a bridge from the national bank. and work as a did it throughout the 50s to build highways or whatever together. and does even act. your comments are very interesting in the question i have is related to this question

of the proverbial crystal ball. and what you've and witness. and based on what you are seen currently given both a political climate and what's going on with fed monetary policy. and what you anticipate in the future. i hope it's not an unfair question. a couple of years ago i anticipate a difficult financial crisis when the european central bank promised it would stop its quantitative easing which was a couple of summers ago after he have to do a lot of it when there was a crisis in europe to begin in 2012. on a global basis. the time at which it really went on the rails. it's when they really stopped their programs.

they didn't stop their programs. because they knew this. the problem is they don't have an exit plan. short of diverting and explaining a lot of things that they don't want to have to do because of much rather get out of their positions. and go into private sector and call it a day. however, the timing i don't know because i do know from experience overlooking this. central banks have become to smooth over any rough edges.

now i believe it's not sure. if it starts to do things too quickly. it is like a teeter totter. were kind of in the middle. there should be another crisis because there is too much debt. on the other hand. there is a lot of power and influence. and the desire to keep things up and balance. it has only been over there. this is not new because we've known to follow the money for generations and it always ends up with the bankers. who has benefited from these trillions of dollars. there's always good to be

somebody who has carpet bagged. that money is somewhere doing something. why would you put the world economy in the tank deliberately and then try to shore it up. if there was not a financial benefit. this goes back on the way to the financial crisis. it was before a lot of this. i don't even know what i predicted. but i did talk about exactly what was going on the mat map was such that the amount of subprime mortgages that actually lined the assets that failed was

about half a trillion dollars. the amount of assets that u.s. banks created off at the back of that half. was 14 trillion. they let money to lots of places. on top of that so that they could buy those assets. so the math worked out that that was about ten to one. just to make it really conservative. the half a trillion of subprime mortgages were supporting hundred $40 trillion of financial stuff. as a result of that. it was imperative for the fed to come up with some way of writing

that tide by creating enough money. in order to not have all of that completely implode. that meant that some of the barrio -- borrowers did implode. a lot of things happened and needed to happen in order to save the financial institutions. they lined all of this stuff. and there would've actually been no other crisis. and it would've been really much cheaper. that was a mentality. we need this solution to help these institutions. because the entire economy is going to implode forever.

the money went to a safe a lot of the financial creations of the economic crisis. since then it's gone into the stock of these companies. it has gone into creating the most historic debt that the world and consumers have faced since financial iced institutions were created to provide the lending. that's where it's gone. where hasn't gone and that's why it's a really good question. is into stabilizing growth and train and that. in the last four or five recessions. as been caused by that.

and now that they've have some legislation watching it more closely. now they're talking about easing up should they have a program to call us i -- to qualify that. part of even having a portion of debt it would be a way to defuse some of that. we shouldn't had extra regulation for the bank. into a settlement's for what they've committed in the past. they have paid multiple billions of dollars including recently for portion of which.

for creating fake accounts and stealing money from their customers and stuff. if you're like a person who steals a bunch of cars off the streets. if you do it over state lines. you're deftly can have to deregulate them further. or the idea of any congressperson on any side of the aisle deciding that it makes more sense to give them more latitude. it just doesn't make sense. and going back to your question. when there is a crisis that will be a part of it. they are just doing it now with corporate loans.

at record levels. it is all of the loans they have given the corporate. at least to not watch what's going on. it really is a crisis in the making. >> i have a couple of questions. the analysis of the dodd frank. when is it not enough. it is created to dial bank -- dialback some of it.

it didn't actually get created in the week of knowing how much was available from the fed. so we didn't enter the subsidy idea. they would have to create living wills. the emergency like the crisis happens. we need to have more set aside. in the different types of ways. has been created and so forth. it was an act in 1933. in the height of the great depression. by the government as well as by the bankers to separate the deposits and loans of people.

all of the trading in speculative type of transactions. therefore when there was an emergency. it could it be that collateral for the requirement. both the democrats and the republicans in the 2016 election. but it has not been pushed and it's kind of its data back from it. there is an act called hr 790 in congress that's been going on the has about 70 or 80 signatures on it. also a similar act going on in the senate. that is championed to do the same thing and a bipartisan on a bipartisan basis. it hasn't been done yet.

thank you so much for your excellent presentation. i just want to go back really quick to some of the things that you highlighted in your book. the reality of money over politics. in the pocket of a person or country. when you have something that is valued at a certain level. if you sell evil is money even if you want to do that politically. from the standpoint of china .. ..

but she doesn't actually own a lot of treasury. the impact to them and to the world from a sheer price level on treasury bonds would be limited and the bigger countries do it for their own fake --

>> high. very interesting. we talk a lot about china and the united states. but what economies in which countries really concern you? let me throw out one. venezuela. and which give you hope? let me throw out one. any thoughts? >> i actually write this annual ten points to look at over the years thing on my website in january and venezuela was certainly a point from a financial perspective to look at as is argentina, which is how problems make it as well as turkey. in terms of brighter point, look at something like iceland, countries which when they had

the opportunity to separate themselves financially from the bankers that had been operating in their country into the financial crisis decided not to and as a result decided to govern their country from the standpoint of decisions that makes sense as opposed to paying out money they don't have to outside investments. going back to the negative on argentina, the problem argentina had was a lot of the debt it had borrowed was tangled in the same hedge fund operators involved in the subprime crisis and extracted some heavy tolls from the country so when you are doing a financial transaction, you want your money back and either a court or central bank

or super entity decides that is okay. it hurts real people and the economies of the country and financial elements of people involved through an investing standpoint and take the money out. >> thank you. >> this man escapes me. confessions of an economic hitman.

the second thing has related to his job was for years. i come to the conclusion that for 300 years, changing whoever is in power with a lot of influence and resources, usually money. a few periods of history where there was -- >> it is interesting. all the president's bankers, i look at the period of the 50s as a period of that kind of sanity. there were a lot of problems from an economic perspective

because the financiers thanks to the country and government, someone on the same page. they actually wanted to do that. they have the requirement to actually do that. there is too much separation between the money and what needs to happen, to help long-term growth and real economy, and you have crises and economic and revolutionary type of people. in the period when it is someone on the same page, ideas and governments, is more stable. greed does have a way of changing history and the more

money is available, the more destabilizing it is to everybody else particularly if they aren't concerned or wants to play their own playground which is the case. >> thank you. those are excellent questions. thank you to warwick's for hosting into c-span for coming here. i hope you enjoy "collusion: how central bankers rigged the world". [applause] >> before we go anywhere you know the team i like to do. those who have your books, i want you to -- a picture of the crowd. >> there i go.

all right, perfect. nomi prins will be signing books over here. we have books for sale too. appreciate it. [inaudible conversations] >> today at 10:30 eastern, book tvs live at the mississippi book festival for their fourth annual literary lawn party at the state capital in jackson with discussions on race and identity, southern history, us politics and presidential leadership. authors include cheryl cashincome other of loving, interracial intimacy in america and the threat to white supremacy.

join us live beginning at 10:30 eastern for the mississippi book festival on booktv on c-span20. >> hello, everyone. i am jennifer grossman, ceo of the atlas society, a philosophy think tank which has been building on the ideas of i and rand in creative ways. i'm not sure why i was selected to moderate this panel. it is not -- >> voracious female influence. >> in the 1992 playboy september issue of playmates ivy league, because i was not.