wendy gramm was on the board of directors of enron in the late ninety's and her husband phil graham proposed both the commodities futures modernization act which allowed for this explosion of c.d.o. is made out of mortgage debt that was traded on these black markets nonexistent markets and phil gramm also proposed the grammys bliley bill which blew up glass steagall in this was these were in ninety nine and two thousand my recollection is correct to what extent does a lot of the responsibility for those lay right of phil gramm as feet are at you know coming out of the enron model and phil gramm perhaps even being influenced by his wife being on the board of it. you know i haven't done enough reporting on phil gramm to say definitively clearly. folks like phil gramm and other people in washington played a significant role in and pushing this because the reason that that folks at the big banks were emboldened to do this is they knew that that the shackles have been taken off that there was little chance that there was going to be any kind of enforcement any kind of rule making and oft

you know which is interesting because of course the smartest guys in the room is what the folks at enron liked it to think of themselves as and by two thousand and two two thousand and three two thousand and four and iran had been exposed as a scam and should have served just as just as a savings and loan crash should have served should have served as a warning about accepting. the you know this kind of idea the idea of the the the cult of the of the expert in this idea that we should defer to to see superstars and to math geniuses who who they know better than we do so that was kind of the context in the environment that we were operating in and why so many americans are one reason why so many americans were willing. to believe the falso that they were told by salespeople for these large. banks and of course the other thing is that the time you know there was a lot of respect for places like bank of america and countrywide. but so when you had inside the companies there were folks that they didn't even get to the point of telling the public they were just trying to internal. report folk

defrauded all those grannies right remember the enron story they openly bragged how they were putting grannies into the freezer by manipulating the energy markets and instead of using that as a cue to maybe regulate the terrorism instead what the white house said wow this is a great way to make money for us so we're going to let the spread throughout the entire economy every state and then should now be run by energy terrorists because it's an energy paradise called the united states of terrorism and we're going to make amends and of course our cold clocking dollars twenty four seven three sixty five that's the way they love it you're unemployed your face down in the mud by your expendable ok let's speak about more about bankers and the control they have over the u.s. economy in every single sector the banker wants. between you and the service of the products you want to buy here's why bankers deserve capital punishment read these two stories this is from barry ritholtz and both stories relate to the volcker rule and the lobbyist that have bastardized the whole thing the volcker rule

enron doing all this fancy stuff around the edges and fast moving traders. they're moving up and down and shucking and jiving. did it rur to you that the off balance sheet stuff is maybe you shouldn't be signing off on as the chief risk officer? did it ever occur to you that maybe you should say something about that? >> the off-balance sheet statement -- >> would you move the mike closer? >> the off-balance sheet that you're return to was fully established prior to my -- >> i didn't ask you if it was fully established. i asked you if you ever thought that you should say something about that. >> there was off-balance sheet trading. but if you're referring to mf, off balance sheet -- >> is off balance sheet legal? >> that's an accounting treatment. >> is off balance sheet treatment legal? >> again, i'm not an accounting expert. but under -- >> you're the one that has to certify the risk and so i don't care if you're an expert or not on accounting. i'm asking from you, as the c, the cro, ceo, coo, you're one of the c's. is it legal? >> to the best of my underst

of the lack of regulation it was brought about by phil gramm when his wife wendy was on the board enron and he was pushing through the grammys blyleven blower class stiegel to deregulate the banks and the commodities futures modernization act to deregulate commodities so that enron could make a fortune on and it crashed our economy seven trillion dollars has vanished while the federal government let fannie mae and freddie mac. steal the supply and it had nothing to do with that and they are. with that and that was another good example of why government agencies like freddie and fannie never should have been privatized anyhow it's time for a quick photo let's get to our last question here at the time was icons of childhood entertainment in america under attack by conservatives first it was the moffats markets then sponge bob square pants and now dr seuss take a listen to what lou dobbs had to say about the newest dr seuss film but more x. . the movie set to be released nationwide next month is about lower woodland creature who speaks for the trees and fights rampant industrialism. he cut

his wife wendi in his work in the industry she was on the board of directors of enron so this is there's a long history to the bizarre corruption here phil gramm who was john mccain's economic adviser and and good buddies with ronald reagan free marketeers say hey anybody should be able to gamble on anything you know. but we historically haven't done that we've had markets that are transparent and that are regulated particular commodities markets how do we get back to that. well you know free marketeers also love to quote adam smith who thought this sort of thing was despicable so this isn't a market in any conceivable sense of the word in a market when the demand for a commodity goes down the price reacts accordingly this is something else altogether this is gambling it's gambling in secret it's gambling in private in the way you get rid of it is by regulating what needs to be regulated in some cases to it maybe going on with your money and mine being put at risk so you know what you do is you go in and you say this is what you can and can't do is a financial institution particularly on

. >> what we have discovered is a company that is a private intelligence enron. so, you guys grew up together. yes, since third grade... what are you lookin' at? not looking at i anything... we're not good enough for you. must be supermodels? what do you model gloves? brad, eat a snickers. why? 'cause you get a little angry when you're hungry. better? [ male announcer ] you're not you when you're hungry™. better. [ male announcer ] snickers satisfies. what makes sam adams boston lager great is as simple as abc. a, the appearance. amber. [ jim ] b, balance. sam adams has malt sweetness hoppy bitterness. [ jim ] c, complexity. pine notes grapefruit notes. only believe your own pallet. go taste them. (vo)weeknights... >>the weakest citizen in this country is more important than the strongest corporation. my god, this is one of the stupidest things i've ever heard! you got a bone to pick with that? the blood is in the water and the sharks are bipartisan. >> back on the young turks. well, wikileaks have released 5 million emails or are in the process of doing it on a

i am not going to comment on enron. i defended people in that case, but a whole point is to promote the very dialogue you talked about. we do not have it all right. if this new residential mortgage-backed securities working group permit me to have more discussions with camilla harris or joe biden or others who are saying we have more flexibility in, i think that is right. i think it is on us not to about to political pressure, but i think it is incumbent on us to have as comprehensive and approach as we can so we get it right, so that is the goal. >> let me ask about these clayton documents. i have seen them marginally. he was speaking on very aggressively, saying we have an impending crisis, and i thought they produced a fine document. these clayton documents, essentially we say the very company brought in to do due diligence on the credit worthiness of mortgages told the bank's these loans do not such as fiat your underwriting standards. good -- do not support your underwriting standards. it seems to me you followed t

when enron came along we heard about offshore off-balance sheets. a major accounting firm went out of business because of that review of their books. we had crisis in 2008. are major banks talk to us about off-balance sheet investments that they called a special investment vehicle, sid's. they all had them, they'll did them and nobody knew about them except them and now i'm being told or am i being told that it's okay to have off-balance sheets significant investments significantly risky investments off the balance sheet? are you telling me that is okay for your reading mr. parmelee that is perfectly acceptable to you? >> sir, as i said if you are talking about a lack of transparency i believe fully there are to be more transparency around the transaction. >> mr. cantor would you agree it's perfectly okay to have off-balance sheet rtm's or any other investment you're not told about? >> a thing would be helpful to have these types of transactions on balance sheets but as my panelist said there is already transparency. the information is in the footno

and basically did an enron around the news media. once again, the news media probably didn't get that memo because they were covering this thing as they always covered every campaign, which is, okay, we look at the press releases. we talk with the press spokesmen. they didn't realize they had become irrelevant at that point. as for watergate, it's one of these things where he time and time again, i think, misread the press. he felt from the very day -- in fact, there's a great anecdote from james keogh's book of nixon meeting in a hotel saying the press is out to get you, out to get me, out to get all of us. he treated the press with basically cool contempt. i think that after a while, as we know, the stakes got raised over and over again. nixon, among other things, for instance, deciding to go -- telling people to go after "the washington post" tv licenses. the minute that happened, "the post" dropped right through the floor, cost "the post" something like a million bucks to challenge those licenses. that's not the action of a guy t

obviously, whistle-blowers with company is likeenron -- companies like enron has gotten the attention they can get support through a program like this. everyone knows that in the legal program, it is buddy and buddy. if you're going against certain entities and certain persons, you will never -- the word is never -- get representation in the bay area. you have to get it outside the body that work -- buddy network. i think a lot of people don't want to admit that the problem exists among lawyers like any fraternity of professionals. they will always scratch each other's back and you're going to help each other as much as you can. we are going to be honest and help the poor, etc. you might as well include the whistle-blowers' because that is the fastest way to clean up government. thank you. president chiu: are there any other members of the public that wish to speak on this item? i think public comment is over. >> [inaudible] supervisor farrell: thanks, supervisor kim. thanks to president chiu for bringing this forward. first of all, it is great to see so many lenders of the local bar

afraid we don't take it and there's going to contain in the united states as far as israeli policy on enron and palestine does how think it's a rift between the united states and israel or is it merely another quarrel i'm surprised to realize how deep the americans care for israel is when he comes to have the conversation the political conversation in the us. i also can see how. the aftermath of the war in iraq and enough guns. and the american fatigue of the middle east. could work badly for the image is present in the u.s. in the political discourse. in the u.s. and in the context of american interests god forbid that the us will be more reluctant. to reach out for israel because our predicament. is the result of a policy pursued by this kind of government in a way that i think is tragically wrong. that we lean to the american congress a single source of strength in our diplomatic fabric and that is. very dangerous what following on so much of playing israel has become increasingly isolated on the international stage what should the country's first steps to bring it out of the isolation i

commissions that will last until tend of the next season, that is inevitably going to be, quote, an enron around the advice and consent because there is an alternative way to fill in the offices. they thought about the fact that the since that the senate would not be able to play a role with those. they've decided to include it anyway. it's not as if they just recognized -- >> but hamilton -- >> hamilton made it very clear that the framers understood that doing nothing was okay both for the senate and for the executive. and the consequence. the electorate would pick out who screwed up the process and who should be b pun nushed. you said that the duty to take -- the senate not acting was a violation of doing the take care clause. >>obstruction. >> right. is the president violating the duty to take care clause when he doesn't submit nominations? when he allows important advice and consent positions to remain vacant? i remember from at least from o kill a program was to not send the nomination up. let it cry foul. let it have an acting there who was afraid to do anything and that is a tradit

and what's the top he told me that a lot of that he thinks enron's imposing its own on in boggo to show it won't be bullied. economic sanctions are a game that two can play and turnabout is fair play in international affairs the european commission and the relevant powers have been making a big noise over the past couple of weeks about how they are going to embargo and boycott all iranian oil starting on july first well it's pretty obvious the iranians decided not to wait around until july first they've decided to to impose their own embargo boycott on the offending powers and they're starting with the the two biggest imperialist bullies on the schoolyard the british and the french who are now so weak that they can only act together they are a kind of imperialist bicycle built for two they haven't had time to carefully arrange the fallback options and the alternative sources of oil so this is a little bit of a surprise to that the iranians have been under sanctions for thirty years when i was in iran you see a lot of prosperity a lot of economic activity there had been a shock in januar

enron, lehman, world com which caused major market disruptions. bad company and bad securities are being rated favorably right up until the minute the house of cards collapses. if we can avoid these bankrupt shocks to the system, our financial system will be sounder and investors will be more confidence. when a situation like mf global occurs it is our responsibility to examine how it happened. carefully consider reforms and most importantly make sure it doesn't happen again. mr. chairman again i appreciate your facilitating this hearing. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. now, mr. royce is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is three months now after the initial hearing and still we've got most of the questions unanswered in terms of what happened to the $1.2 billion in customer funds. i think the most pressing public policy left unaddressed in all of this is, of course, the breach in segregated customer funds. i guess the shocking part is the rules have been around 75 years. according to the regulatory community t

and israel is threatening military action in response to this enron is reportedly cutting off oil shipments to greece let's get some insight on all this from someone specializing in planning for the worst strategy consultant guns all the lira joining us from chile so greece is relying on iranian oil as some other export or export or as have stop trading with actions with athens rather over its credit worthiness if this is confirmed that they're holding these oil shipments what effect do you think it will have on greece. it will be catastrophic. but it will be just as bad for the europeans. but the european funds. need to deal with greece is not a done deal they've been talking about all those big amounts in a month. and there is no deal on march twentieth. working point three twelve billion euros to. read you've been getting uranium all summer has been over fifty percent of all consumption and it's been getting the oil and the favorable terms from law. and the international community so they have essentially. real oil and now they're going to know it does not have the means to pay off its m

america and goldman sachs has slipped below the dangerous threshold of now no longer companies like enron and world com so could the big banks be headed in the same direction and u.s. bank risk we know it's high wall reputations i just told you are low put this together with other troubles in the u.s. japan and europe not to mention the threat of oil shock pending iran and saudi arabia and don't be fooled by the s. and p. this could have us all headed to economic and political trouble in the second half of two thousand and twelve elise we'll talk to an economist who certainly thinks so and meanwhile it is the third anniversary of obama signing that seven hundred eighty seven billion dollars economic recovery act better known as the stimulus so how about in honor of the birthday a refresher lesson and just how business gets done in washington when big bucks are at stake we'll look at the so-called free trade deals passed last year by congress with someone who says free trade no way how about a drug trade deal or tailored to the desires of corporate cash donations let's get to today's capit

sector our you know the best example i think of the last and most people are familiar with this is enron you know you had cities and in some cases even a couple of states privatizing public utilities selling them down ron saying look at all the money we made well and then you know hey let's make some more money and that's you know very different situation grama crash and burn understand that analogy but it's a very different situation there are states that have actually conducted studies to look over the years about how companies such as c.c.a. have been able to run these institutions the state of louisiana for example conducted a study that compared a state run institution with an institution run by c.c.a. and they determine statistically that c.c.a. writ institution that ran a very well and had a what about tell us it was fifteen percent more effect what that tells us is that there's something that can be learned by prisons but again again do you really want a corporation whose principal business is keeping people in prison. out there operating in the public sphere it's i mean they hav

money and it worked beautifully and it could happen again today especially in a digital world where enron money and yet there's no money and you know it's more common to see these attempts and since the internet opened it's opened its doors we've seen more and more attempts to try to create digital currencies we should give it a try and in fact this is the whole suggestion that and i did that's an idiot. let me ask you this though you said the fed's only been around for one hundred years there were times where it was done just fine without one but i want to go back to this interview with alan blinder because one of the things dimitri asked him was if the period between the second bank of the us and the civil war wasn't an example of the market being able to set interest rates and it was called the wildcat banking here's what alan blinder said. to me the best way to answer this is that we didn't call it the wildcat banking era for nothing while cats are wild cats and they sometimes produce very dysfunctional results and they did. so mr jeffrey tucker mr whiskey and gunpowder are wild cats

enron we learned literally called its tax department a profit center. >> you have corporations that ifhey were paying a normal amount would see those dollars invested in the united states, and instead they are investing it somewhere else like in the lobbyists. >> if you are on american company and go oversees you go to a high-tax country, and then you use accounting tricks to move your profits to a low-tax country. that's one of the most important things. many of the profits that companies are reporting overseas were earned in the united states, but taken out of the country in royalty fees or other intellectual fees that were paid to itself in a tax haven. >> so money invested in the united states because of loopholes in the tax system and provisions that benefit those corporations, and on the personal side, you are seeing income inquality grow. you wrote pan excellent column in october of last year where you documented what the advanced countries were -- how we ranked with respect to income inequality. and if you can describe we were behind some countries that i any many people would

i think as i said earlier -- >> eisai didn't matter enron was trading 27 of the 60 billion? >> trance parents is important. >> i think ms could have been more clear to the market place. i'm asking with the guests are now about the off elegy. >> could've been more transparent than they were. >> with a transparent enough to know was going on? >> wednesday filed their 10 k. report in may, we knew about the off balance sheet exposure. >> they would have affected if they've not been sneaky about it before. if they been more transparent. mr. geller, when you begin to the wanted sound out you put them down to 29, which is equivalent to the ccc. >> that's correct. poets are concerned that 10? >> is a combination of drops and three primarily three of our six performing categories. sales performance was dropping dramatically. their profitability performance is dropping dramatically and there is leverage. so we saw significant warning signs across the board and we look at some of the numbers i quoted in my opening statement as a dramatic change in that business over the past few years.

but in britain the economist is best known for financial investigations of enron.pat robertson and others. before he was an investigative reporter he was one of the top investigators of fraud and racketeering. the baltimore chronicle wrote, as terry said, no one has investigated the bush family like greg palast and lived to tell about it. spam look to tell about. that is a book and you are getting your book tonight. we are so thankful you're your joining us tonight with vfp fw. when you start reading this you will dog-ear every single page. you underline, highlight and try to fix these things your memory but one thing i would ask you to do on this great evening you will have a greg palast is just listening connect the dots. that is what he is genius that, connecting the dots between these three wonderful groups, petroleum, -- in pursuit of petroleum pigs, power pirates, and high-finance carnivores. they are partners, believe me. >> here tonight live, in pursuit of petroleum pigs, power pirates, and high-finance carnivores, the intrepid, the muckraker, the magnet fo

enron, a major announcement is expected about the country's nuclear ambitions.he news agency says officials will install domestically produced nuclear fuel rods into a research reactor today. president of ahmadinejad will be there. this could mean a run news always several months away from producing nuclear fuel. we will be right back as the kron4 news continues. thirs a live look outside of this cold and windy wednesday morning. will ec in the middle is where the new westbound lanes will be placed. why some big changes if the weather cooperates. >>james: here is a live look at the bay bridge. mrs. maurer, 43-48 degrees outside the door. it would advisor has been issued for the bay bridge. >>james: everywhere around the bay will see pretty strong winds. you'll see the area in dark blue, a 30 mi. per hour gusts. you'll also see 24 mi. per hour sustained winds. tortes for pm is on the web advisor is set to expire. the lead will be particularly strong this afternoon with a breezy conditions. the satellite view shows off wet weather well to the south and off to the

when i read that, i'm just a suspicious character but brings to mind enron. enron doing all this fancy stuff around the edges and cut fast-moving traders and moving all up and down and jumping and jotting and moving all around. did it occur to that the off-balance-sheet stuff was maybe something that you should be signing off on as chief, chief risk officer, the c and the risk deal? did it ever occur to that you might should say something about that? >> the off-balance-sheet treatment -- >> could you move the mic a little closer? >> the treatment you're referring to if you refer to the sovereigns was fully established prior to my -- >> i didn't ask it is fully established isa did you ever think your to say something about that? is it normal where you do off-balance-sheet trading at ubs? >> to the best of my recollection there was some off-balance-sheet trading, but if you're referring to i can come if you're referring to mf, off-balance-sheet, the -- >> is that balance sheet legal? >> that is an accounting trick that. >> is off-balance-sheet legal? >> under,

that is lower than approval for bp two months after the oil spill and they are 1% more popular than enronfter going bankrupt and 3% higher than blagovich, they just passed a version of the stock act, it's expected to go to the senate. it's an effort to curb insider trading in congress. what are you making of the efforts of congress trying to show it's not as bad as it is. and trying to fix the bad ways. >> the backdrop of which it's playing out answers the question. it's fairly legitimate what they are trying do here, i think it might actually improve congress from a ethical standpoint but we are talking about yet another showdown playing out over the payroll tax cut extension, so the entire story of the last few years has been one of confrontation, which i think, there are reasons for that confrontation, there are pro found reasons why the republican party has gone this direction, if you are a tea party believer you are happy about it, but if you share the view that you want the strong social safety net, you are happy your party is standing its ground. but if you are the detached swing v

the enron thinking when anyone came along we came -- a major accounting firm went out of business because of that review of the books. women had a crisis in 2008, our major banks talk to us about off-balance-sheet investments. they call them special investment vehicles. siv. they all had and if they all didn't. and and about them. accept them. and now i'm being told, or am i being told him that it's a to have off-balance-sheet significant investment, significantly risky investments off the balance sheet. are you telling me that's okay for your rating, mr. parmelee, that it's perfectly acceptable to you? >> as i said if you're equating off-balance-sheet for lack of transparency i agree fully the need to be transparent to, that ought to be more transmitted around these action. >> mr. cantor, would you agree it's perfectly okay to have off-balance-sheet rtm or any other investment you're not told of a? >> i think would be helpful to these type of transactions on balance sheet but i think as my panelists said there is already transparency, the information is in the footnote as you identified,

. >> congress is running about neck and neck with enron and rod blagojevich. >> so if the president runsstrategy? >> i think that's part of the strategy. he also has an incredibly winning message in terms of income disparity and the poor and the working class. these are things stlat been bubbling in american society. these are trend lines that emerge. have been coming to the fore over the course of the last 30 years. finally through confluence of events, occupy wall street and the white house strategy center, it's now the president's message. i think it's incredibly effective, and i think it will be a really good message for him going forward, provided the economy stays strong. there are a lot of variables there. we haven't talked about foreign policy. that could be something that undermines things. >> europe, iran, everything else up in the air. alex wagner, dana milbank, thank you for joining me tonight. and you can see alex's show. dana and i watch it every day. now with alex wagner at high noon. >> high noon. >> high noon here on msnbc. >> thanks, rev. >>> still ahead, new poll numbe