there have been people who have said europe need as czar and they need hank paulson. he's suggested that hank go over there. >> which, of course, freaks the europeans. >> even geithner is here. >> hey, son. >> timmy. >> paulson might have -- they wouldn't have listened to them. how many are there. how many -- >> there's a zillion. 17 in the eurozone, they've all got their finance ministers and the euro group and eurozone. so many leaders. so many leaders. so little leadership. >> you know, in hindsight it's gotten more -- his legacy has gotten better and better as time has gone on. but, again, he was ceo of goldman sachs. >> that's how they had all the power, they control them. >> with some of the backlash against walg street at this point, i would be like him. i wouldn't have want to be out in front. they're ignorant, most of them, that are so app tie-capitalism or so anti-goldman sachs. they've never had an economics course. they look at him. he could become the poster child. i would lay low. >> you know, the most impressive thing about hank paulson, his many, many w

we talked to hank paulson yesterday. didn't think the volcker rule really mattered meaning the protry tear trading was not the problem. if you had to offer your comments, not in the form of a letter but maybe somebody is listening. >> well, i don't think proprietary trading remotely caused the crisis. that isn't what did it. with the exception of aig the home mortgage problem wasn't caused by proprietary trading. it was the reverse. it was people who hedged themselves. >> do you think the rules are a mistake? i ask that because a number of banks, regulators and a number of letters from just plain old vanilla american corporations submit letters saying the volcker rule may create problems and possibly systemic problems for sovereigns and the like. >> it's very likely to for a couple of reasons. those people had been a big source of liquidity in a whole variety of markets. if you don't have market liquidity you'll have more volatility. >> so paul volcker writes a letter in support of the volcker rule and says liquidity is

we know from hank paulson's memoirs that he asked and members of congress who were at that meeting had the leave their blackberries and cell phones at the door, it was highly sensitive. and we know based on paulson's account that they informed members of congress that this was a potentially cataclysmic financial crisis, that the dow jones industrial average was going to go down at least 20% and that we were looking at potential catastrophe in terms of the economy. according to paulson, the congressmen who were at this meeting were ashen-faced and stunned -- those are his words -- at what they were hearing. after that september 18th meeting, ten people who were at that meeting, members of congress, went out and sold a bunch of stock the next day. congressman from virginia, moran, sold stock in 90 different companies. you had other members of congress who dumped shares in the financial sector and ended up buying shares in other companies that did very, very well. there was also a gentleman at that meeting named spencer bachus who's the current chairman of the house financial services com

we know for hank paulson's memoirs that he has to members of congress at that meeting had to be there but there is in cell phones the door. and we know based on paulson's account that they informed members of congress that this is a potentially cataclysmic financial crisis, that the dow jones industrial average go down at least 20% am really looking at potential catastrophe in terms of the economy. according to paulson, the congressman was stand out what they were hearing. after that september 18 meeting, 10 people who were at that meeting went out and sold a bunch of stuff the next day. congressman from virginia rammed sold stock in 90 different companies. you had other members of congress to dump shares in the financial dirt and ended up buying shares and other companies come up at a very, very well. also a gentleman named buckets come as a current chairman of financial services committee who left that meeting and the next morning got some thing called crocheters q., q. q. i'm not a financial guy. that is

they put a gun to the market said they use high frequency trading and they crash the market as hank paulson did in two thousand and eight to weasel seven hundred fifty billion out of congress using financial terrorism well you're argument there that you're allowed to commit crimes and just do it we'll we'll deal with it the lawyers say that at these banks the top twelve reasons you should hate the mortgage settlement this is from the smith a naked capitalism and she says we've now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents it's two thousand dollars per loan it is less than the price of the title insurance that banks fail to get when they transfer the loans for the trust it is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged it's a great deal for the banks because no one is that any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over three hundred years of real estate law well let me tell you a little to give you some perspective on this back in the one nine hundred seventy s. i was worki

hank paulson. until the end of the quarter to think about your money... ♪ that right now, you want to know where you are, and where you'd like to be. we know you'd like to see the same information your advisor does so you can get a deeper understanding of what's going on with your portfolio. we know all this because we asked you, and what we heard helped us create pnc wealth insight, a smarter way to work with your pnc advisor, so you can make better decisions and live achievement. >>> welcome back. this hour looks like the he ceq futures are slightly higher making the headlines, texas instruments hiring an adviser on the sale of its factories in japan and the united states. last month the chip maker said it would close a factory in southern japan and another in houston. elsewhere intercontinental hotels is looking to emerging markets and especially to china to drive future growth. the owner of the crowne plaza says recovery meant the united states in a string of new chinese hotel openings helped t

and the government but here terrorist one of government in the case of two thousand and eight hank paulson lloyd blankfein terrorists they destroyed the economy and what obama say we love terrorists please when our government for us we bend over so i can kiss you on your book lloyd blankfein your job over and over iceland did another thing max and that's debt forgiveness since the end of two thousand and eight the island's banks have forgiven loans equivalent to thirteen percent of gross domestic product easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population according to a report published this month by the icelandic financial services association that well look we were in iceland there before we told them this is what they should do they followed our advice and words to gratitude iceland by making me a citizen of iceland ok that's a. you can do i said and country agrees you didn't like my advise arlo even took my advice in greece you mentioned there's plans to eject them here's a country that refused to oust the financial terrorists or in fact they tried to but then of lucas pap

bush by people like hank paulson at the height of the financial crisis take a look at this this was when the house first rejected the seven hundred billion dollars bailout bill and the dow plunged seven hundred seventy eight points the largest one day drop in history. we've experienced significant turmoil or from natural markets in the last few days including the collapse of washington mutual and wall culture year and the failure of two major financial institutions in europe. that prices show the emperor has no clothes and still the us has too big to fail banks zombie banks propped up by the federal reserve we still just see u.s. public debt getting racked up by the trillions as unemployment is still depressed while our addiction to debt has been fed by the public purse the government stepped in to borrow and spend when the private sector collapsed and there's just so much we didn't learn and didn't change in the u.s. after the financial crisis despite all the promises of house leaders made on the floor during the debates you can go back and look at nancy pelosi john boehner they were al

believe that any high authority would ever give any banking insider information like this not like hank paulson we know for fact met in europe with all of these hedge fund guys former goldman sachs people and told them he was. going to let fannie mae and freddie mac. collapse he told them he was going to put them into receivership nobody else knew he told them also that lehman brothers would collapse so god forbid anybody believe that one of our dear leaders would ever do something like that it's not a process based on the fact that this couldn't possibly happen well this is what they love to happen it's like shock and awe countdown to the iraq invasion this winter planning a bank holiday because they know it's the model for countries going forward. portugal spain that they could have a countdown to a bank holiday to default i mean this is this is the game plan the wages in greece and pensions and all the benefits of taking five thousand years to accumulate are being wiped out in six months by paul mason's friends at the i.m.f. the troika lehman brothers and brother of bankers who are now out t

a live extended interview with former treasury secretary hank paulson.s wednesday, february 15th, 2012. "squawk box" begins right now. >>> good morning and welcome to "squawk box." i'm

on wednesday, we'll have an interview with hank paulson.morning. the situation in greece and the president's budget. >> we're not greece, but we're making some of the same mistakes as greece. government's gotten too big. waited too long to restructure. the president's not aggressive or specific enough. we're talking about a $700 billion-plus deficit ten years from now. we need to start dealing with our structural problems. yes, we need to do some things to get the economy going, unemployment down. but it has to be coupled with putting our long-term finances order. in the 2012 election, we need to make sure the economy and how we're going to put our nation in order are the top priorities. we need to repeat what ross perot did in 1992. there's going to be a third option. that candidate or candidates will end up running on substance and solutions. >> but assuming it's either romney or obama, do you, for example, seeing obama trying to tackle these issues in 2013 if he were to win or do you see romney doing the same? >> it's important whoever w

the reason could come in higher i think because if you remember, hank paulson gave everybody a papersaid be a team player here. i think the same thing is going on in europe. there are certain banks that aren't participating. i think it could come in high. >> thanks for joining us. we want to alert people to a headline at the bottom of your screen. gold man s goldman sachs getting a wells notice. very little market reaction right now. we continue to monitor the story. let's hit some "options action." mike khouw you're looking at health systems. >> poimpbting out they're overpaying for acquisitions. little free cash flow. looks like they may have to draw a revolver to close the four to five deals they are talking about. plus on april 30th, department of justice is going to give us an update on whether or not they're going to step anything up on a whistle blower lawsuit. while everyone' looking up on the stock, maybe it's time to look down. >> what's the trade? >> the june 24 puts then sell the 20s against it for 80 cents. net debit of a dollar. looking to spend about 20% through the st

. >> hank paulson 7:00 a.m. but we'll lead up to it at 6:00 which is important to anticipate him coming. "squawk on the street" is next. ♪ love ♪ love will keep us together ♪ think of me babe whenever >>> the captain and tennille. i'm carl quintanilla with melissa lee and jim cramer. david faber is back at hq. market not taking too many worries to heart. futures down about 28 points. europe as well. counting on this italian bond auction early today. 6 million euros worth of debt. maximum targets reached. yields lowest levels since march. adding to relatively good news out of the sovereigns. >> that brings us to our road map for this morning. we start off with consumer. retail soars. avon misses. >> big call on barnnks by citi. >> war of words between banks and paul volcker. defending the volcker rule. >> two market darlings, apple and mcdonald's fighting back over criticism on questionable business pras. at what point does either controversy take its toll on their respective stock prices. we begin with corporate

former treasury secretary, hank paulson, speaking to our own andrew ross sorkin today, saying he's encouragednomic news, but it will be a long slog to recovery in the u.n. andrew ross sorkin is here with more from that interview. >> we asked the treasury secretary to think about the european situation and whether it was right to compare it to what happened in september of 2008. take a listen. >> when you look at lehman brothers, remember, i believe lehman was a symptom as much as anything. because we had, we had aig, merrill, lehman brothers, all going down the same week. we had this problem throughout europe. i don't think that is the right analogy. but i think the one thing that we should take away from lehman brothers, is you don't want a big systemic institution to fail in a messy way. and you clearly don't want that to happen with a member state. >> given all the controversy around the volcker rule these days, we asked him whether he supports it and his answer is pretty interesting. take a listen to this. >> i advocated very strong tough regulation on the big banks. and but i didn't advo

our financial crisis had we financial crisis had we taken more seriously, had the treasury under hank paulsonore seriously the failure of bear stearns which came six months before the full-fledged crisis. they believe that that the crisis had passed. there was a lot of best case scenario thinking going on, as there always is. >> let's hear from eric in atlanta. georgia, good morning. >> thank you for taking my call. i wanted to make a couple of comments and ask a question. caller: the way the you guys framed this question about the eurozone socialism, things of that nature but it does not have anything to do with socialism. china was allowed into the wto by george w. bush. china dumped a bunch of cash on our investment banks. they thought that investments backed mortgage securities for a lucrative investment. guest: the fact of the matter is that the u.s. financial system is part of the global financial system. the fact is that china's savings played a role. they expanded the capital available for all kinds of uses, including the creation of mortgage-backed securities. much more important is

i noted the portrait of hank paulson that's gone up in which a write-up that obviously -- with his approvalng initiated many of the reforms that wound up in the financial reform bill. so, m mr. paulson was also ther. i do want to go back to the deficit because the chairman said he agrees it should be -- he talks only about the entitlements. when you talk about the level of reduction we need f you're going to get that all out of social security and medicare and not go else where, you're going to be doing damage. and i believe to start with, overseas military expenditures that are quite excessive. from the economic standpoint, given the importance of a longer term policy to reduce the deficit, purely economic standpoint, there are policy preferences i know you don't want to get into. but from the purely macroeconomic standpoint, would it be greatly different if those came from reducing the costs of living increases, social security or restricting medicare or from some change in the tax code at the upper levels of income? would there be any macroeconomic difference? >> well, from a macroeconom

. >> even hank paulson said you need to lower the rate but you ultimately have to be raising revenue. the goal has to be to lower the rate, as you said, so you'll raise the amount of revenue generated. >> i don't think that you would have paulson and a lot of republicans saying you should raise taxes on businesses by $250 billion over the next ten years. >> ultimately some businesses are going to -- >> not necessarily businesses. it can be individuals. we should be at 25. we should be doing all we can. the economy is made up of small and large businesses. it's not made up of o the government. it isn't. what we want to do to compete globably is to have the leanest, meanest, we want to export -- >> i'm not telling you this plan is a panacea. i'm telling you this plan has to be considered at least a step in the right direction to get the conversation moving. >> and i think especially to get to the idea where you don't have some corporations that aring less than 5% and some paying over 28%. thing you need to get to the point where you strip away a lot of the reductions. >> becky, you're r

how about jim johnson who headed up fannie mae or hank paulson? oh, i'd love to see this. you know, as i speak , coming to light between the individual state governments and the big wall street banks over the widespread use of fraudulent schemes and missing paperwork that fueled the foreclosure crisis. as the presses reported, we are seeing the possible imposition of $25 billion in penalties against wells fargo, bank of america, jpmorgan chase, allied financial and citigroup. given the extent of the damage they caused, it's a small start. just in ohio the financing gap was $20 billion in what it would take to stabilize the housing market in just our state. most importantly, "the new york times" is reported that the deal will preserve the right to investigate past misdeeds by the banks. not one, not even the fightans of wall street should be -- not even the titans of wall street should be able to do this as millions of families lose their home. it is important that we do not forget how systemic mortgage fraud has become. in an interview given by a former executive vice pres