neil barofsky, oversight of t.a.r.p., big pabailout, and before the break, neil, i asked you who fromks, from wall street should go to jail for this financial meltdown. give me some names and what are their crimes. not funny, i'm serious. >> i was a prosecutor for eight years and ran a law enforcement agency for two years and it would be totally inappropriate for me, without seeing the actual evidence and hearing the defenses to declare whether or not somebody should be criminally charged. >> were there -- let me ask you this, mr. former prosecutor, were there crimes committed, without naming names? were there crimes committed? >> it certainly appears that both during the financial crisis and afterwards, there have been a series of frauds that almost -- a list as long as my arm. if you look at things like the robo signing scandal, whe fraudulent affidavits were routinely submitted in courts so as to illegally foreclose on people. when you look at the legal complications with the bonds, and certainly with this libor, clearly there needs to be handcuffs put on people who were involved i

joining me is neil barofsky to discuss libor. he recounts his dramatic detail in his new book "bailout." neil, thanks for being here? >> thanks for having me. >> you stood up for those who often did not have a voice down in the halls of the treasury department. i want to begin with libor, bank call lewd and regulators do >> it is absolutely the case. it is depressing to see how much it confirms the problems we have with our financial system, and how they haven't been fixed. now we're learning what we suspected just a few weeks ago. this is a global international conspiracy to fix the most important interest rate imaginable in the world, and our regulators knew about it in 2007 and the spring of 2008. and the reaction is nothing short of pathetic. tim geithner sends an email, and had a meeting with some speculators in washington, but where is the oh, my god, we just found out about an international conspiracy and we have one of the banks confessing on tape. where was that outrage? where was telling the markets what was going on? >>

joining me now, the former special inspector general of t.a.r.p., neil barofsky an author of a new book. "bailout." thank you so much for joining us. >> great to be here. >> the book is terrific and thanks for joining us today to talk about this important conversation. so first let me geyour thoughts on t.a.r.p. in your book you say "t.a.r.p., the popular perception that i had warned geithner about, that t.a.r.p. was little more than a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to undeserving wall street executives." do you think the program was necessary and do you think it worked? >> i think it was necessary, in that we were heading off of, you know -- into a terrible potential global apocalypse. because of the importance of these giant super mega banks. that if they started to fall, they could bring the entire economy down with them and we needed some sort of response. and it wasn't just t.a.r.p., it was the trillions and trillions of dollars from the federal reserve and other programs. working together that did help stop us from going over that cliff. and while it was successful in t

back to you. >>> here now, neil barofsky, former t.a.r.p. inspector. and roger cohen. nk you, gentlemen. neil, if banks are too big to fail, are they then too big to manage risk, too complex to manage risk and can you do what sandy weill wants -- split off the investment bank and go back to old fashioned commercial banking? >> it's possible and necessary. all we have seen in the last few weeks and months is scandal after scandal that arises from the fact that banks are too big to manage and incentives drive them to take bigger risks. i will say something i never thought i would say. sandy weill was right today. the other thing, big surprise, tim geithner going on the hill protecting the status quo of the too big to fail banks yet again. >> sheila behr, richard fisher, dallas fed head, tom hoenig, kansas city fed head at the fdic are all saying the same thing, that banks should be broken up. how do you see it? >> well, we have to start with the proposition which mr. weill was advocating to reinstate glass-steagal will recollect. the debate has gotten off track. when you

neil barofsky, author of the new book "bailout" thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. thanks for having me. >>> you know how this is called the great recession, not the depression, not quite yet? well, now we're really getting ready to relive another defining event of the 1930s. tom jones style. lie explain next. >>> you know that old joke, and i'm not saying it's a good joke, about how greenland and iceland should switch names because iceland is actually green and greenland is actually frozen -- oh at least greenland is mostly frozen a lot? tonight, i must give you the unsettling news that now in our scary hot summer, greenland is suddenly not so reliably frozen. nasa took this picture of greenland's ice sheet from space recently. the ice sheet typically melts some in the warmer months. the white part is what remained frozen whb the nasa satellite went by on july 8th. it's about 40% of the typical whole. four days later, another nasa image has the ice sheet all but gone. 3% frozen. almost all of it had melted. it had all melted in four days. scientists think the ice s

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neil barofsky joins us now. >> thank you. >> tell us exactly and precisely what you're saying in thishington, charlie, you saw washington had been hijacked by the interests of a small group of powerful wall street banks. they captured regulators' ideolo ideology. what happened and what i saw with tarp is that it went from a program that was supposed to help main street, reinvigorate the economy, help struggling homeowners. it only served the financial elites on wall street. >> my intention is that tarp was intended to stop a gigantic financial collapse of of the system. if they didn't do that and put confidence back, it would fall down. >> it was suppose today do that. throwing $300 billion at banks and trillions of dollars of other support just to preserve what is essentially a broken status quo that benefits really the financial executives, the institutions a little more, wouldn't be that impressive. that's why congress insisted and treasury promised more. they promised that the banks would take this money and use it to deploy into the economy and bring back economic growth which ha

neil barofsky is a thorn in treasurer geithner's side. a colorful quote from the book. hat treasury secretary tim geithner's epic tantrum in 2009. neil, i have been the most [ bleep ] transparent secretary of the treasury in this country's entire [ bleep ] history. end quote. is that a true quote? >> absolutely. >> what were you rg aing about? >> when i got to washington i was shocked to see how much control a handful of the giant wall street banks have over washington and regulation. when i saw the bailout unfold, time and again the officials would be differential to wall street interests. they fought the efforts for transparency. in this meeting i was trying to convince geithner to be more open about what the banks were doing. >> more open about his language. that was a joke. more open about what he was doing to the bank. but did t.a.r.p. fail in your opinion? that's what i want to get at? >> yeah. i mean t.a.r.p. failed to achieve many goals. it helped prevent a giant economic collapse which was important. but it was supposed to reinvigorate the economy. banks were su

joining us is neil barofsky who is a former federal prosecutor for the southern district of new yorkthor of a new book, bailout, an inside account about washington abandoned main street while rescuing wall street. he's now a senior fellow at nyu school of law. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> please tell me if i have this wrong. you don't seem to have been super happy with how the bailout was conducted. you don't seem like a huge fan of it. >> in almost every critical juncture when it came to cr critical choices, this administration and the prior administration, no real material difference between the two, consistently chose the interests of the wall street banks over that of homeowners. over that of the broader economy, and you know, we saw that time and time again, really from the day i got there. >> and so the broad critique you make in your book when you bring up here is that there were a bunch of moments when there was a choice of what to do with the t.a.r.p. funds. they could have gone in a direction that was either more punitive to the banks or put much more

joining me now, neil barofsky and the author of the new book bail-out. great to have you on the program. the book is terrific. thanks for joining us today to talk about this important conversation. so, first let me get your thoughts on tarp. you say, tarp, the popular perception that i had warned git mer about that it was little more than a massive transfer of wealth to undeserving wall street executives. do you think it was necessary and do you think it worked? >> i think it was necessary in that we were heading off into a terrible potential global apocalypse because of the importance of these giant super mega banks. if they started to fall, they could bring the entire economy down with them. we needed some sort of response, it wasn't just tarp, of course. it's the trillions of dollars from the federal reserve and other programs. that did help to stop us going over that cliff. while it was successful in that aspect. it was a whole lot of other things tarp was supposed to do, get lending back in the economy, help struggling homeowners, the bill doesn't p

next week join me my guests include neil barofsky.wall street meets main street. have a great weekend, everybody. i will see you next weekend. over the south pacific in 1943. i got mine in iraq, 2003. usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. and because usaa's commitment to serve the military, veterans and their families is without equal. begin your legacy, get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

neil barofsky stood by the charges. >>> a threat from the white house tonight.he average family will be pay at least $1,600 more in taxes next year if congress does not pass the president's increase on high earners. molly henneberg reports. the two parties are blaming each other. >> the top senate republican says democrats need to fish or cut bait on president obama's push to ex extend some of the bush era tax cuts. >> the democrats believe the president's rhetoric, they'll vote for his proposal and he'll work together their support. my guess is that democratic leaders won't law a vote. >> senate republicans want to extend all bush era tax cuts for a year. families making less than $250,000. as president obama called for and they want to increase the estate tax, what critics call the death tax, to 55% on estates worth more than $1 million. that estate tax part is more than president obama wanted though the proposals were never written up. harry reid says republicans are blocking a vote on any tax cut bill. >> we're here trying to get things done and we're stoppe

. >>> neil barofsky, once in charge of implementing the bailout program known as t.a.r.p., which didn'tillion is out with a book which he insists the program was flawed and focused too much on big banks and didn't do enough to help the middle class. speaking to my colleague, nbc's lisa meyers, barofsky blames cozy ties between washington and washington street. >> the revolving door between washington and wall street is an inhere rant part of the problem. look trashry department, people running the bailout they all came from wall street. you had the people running ahead of it, goldman sachs, merrill lynch, when you go down the chain of the key decisionmakers it's a who's who of investment banks and commercial banks. even someone from bank of america run the housing program. what happens when you have that type of echo chamber where it's this all -- everyone comes with the same ideology of this belief in the banks, that they would -- could do no harm, their interests are align with that of the american people it's not surprising contrary voices get drowned out. >> later in the interview w

. >> there's a new book written by neil barofsky that suggests while the t.a.r.p.t of that was not properly administered. you were not as enthusiastic about that as you should have been. >> obviously i don't share those -- >> what would you say to him to say you got it wrong. >> let's go to the substance of the basic debate. if you look back to that time, we talked about this a lot, you had an american economy falling off the cliff, shrinking at the end of 2008. you had a financial system where you face a real prospect of banks failing across the country and people pulling money out of banks and complete collapse. it's like the power grid going dark for a long period of time. and what we did are things you would never want to do. you never want to have to do. with the authority congress gave two administrations and alongside a very aggressive and creative reserve including when i was there and with the recovery act force that congress authorized, we pulled the economy back from the abyss, stabilized the system and got the economy growing again and those things were

by the way, on the same subject, i don't know if you saw in the new york times today, neil barofsky, the other watch dog originally, wrote a book "bailout ", it is -- i've never read a book review like this in ages. the most remarkable book review that you -- >> why, what did -- >> it's on the cover of the section. it's like if you could say that a book was hated more. it was unbelievable. if you get a chance to -- jackie combs wrote the piece. unbelievable piece of, i guess we call it journalism. >>> time for the global markets report this morning. we'll go across the pond and say hello to kelly evans, who's standing by in london. >> andrew, good morning. there's tons of olympic anticipation around here, but markets this morning are looking a little more muted as they take a pause, try to digest the news flow we've had over the last couple days. advancers outpacing decliners on the europe stock 600 by about a three to two ratio. up about a quarter of a percent this morning and added to gains in those positions just in about the last hour, hour and a half or on. let's hone in on euro