when worldcom was the crisis of the moment. and that was the first thing i was speaking about, about corporate fraud and world banks and how they all related to each other. but it's 60 or so individuals now. they're based in new york. they have an office in d.c. >> is this a george soros funded? >> it's not funded by george soros. i mean, there are other funders and ford is a funder and there are other types of funders. i believe the rockefeller foundation is or was. there's some significant funders behind it. and a lot of the work is very research-businesses. there's a lot of data that is also used for the reports. i did a report on bank risk. really looking into the books and really seeing where their numbers were and those kinds of things take time and research. i am out in l.a. really trying to be an off-chute because i kind of like l.a. it's a change for other reasons and other types of writing and things as well. >> what -- was there something that happened or did it just kind of add up for you to leave the world of finan

but the rating services over the past ten years or so, certainly with enron, worldcom, and indeed in the last episode here in terms of subprimes, they've proved to me at least that in part they work for investment banks and not for investors themselves. i mean, if you're an investor, you want to believe in the sanctity of a rating. and to my way of thinking, what the s&p itself has admitted in terms of its e-mails at least, that they basically, you know, have altered subprime ratings in order to maintain business. i think that goes a little bit too far. in addition, one last point on the services. i think they react far too slowly. first in terms of greece, they still rate, you know, greece, yes, close to junk. but in terms of spain, let me make that point, a aaa type of security. and here's spain with a 20% unemployment rate, 10% deaf silt. spain having defaulted 13 times in the last 200 years. you know, let's question their ability to react quickly. >> now, here's my question. so you're pimco and you have a whole fleet of analysts who are out there looking at this. they laugh, righ

leverage, academics who saw the bubble and predicted its bursting and early warning shots of enron and worldcom. andiet over the past decade what we saw was a broad failure of knowledge and information. a failure to understand the realities of economic realities. and a failure to see linkages and connections. and a failure to understand the elements of mass psychology. these are the kinds of questions the universities are supposed to be concerned with. and so from a positive perspective, there's still a lot to do. and thank god for columbia. into this heated malstrom comes the measured, voice of vikram pandit who had the impeccable timing who was named ceo in 2007 when the troubles in the global financial system may have already become manifest but not to their disastrous scope. the challenges vickram inherited came to a head on his watch and citigroup appeared at one point to be on the brink of collapse. stock prices plummeted from $50 a share in 2007 to briefly trading at under 1 dollar a share. the banker was the recipient of $45 billion in federal funds of t.a.r.p. for which we the taxpayer

in the worldcom case, private litigants recovered $6.85 billion; the s.e.c. recovered only $750 million. in the denegy case, private litigants recovered $474 million; the s.e.c., $198 million. in the a.o.l.-time warner case, private litigants recovered $3.1 billion; the s.e.c. recovered $316 million. according to testimony given on such legislation last year before the subcommittee on crime, the s.e.c. recovered a mere $8 million from security law violators since enactment of sarbanes-oxley in 2002, whereas the private litigants in enron alone recovered $7.3 billion so that the impact of the private lawsuits is -- is very, very important. we have seen the extraordinary impact of wall street fraud, the losses of 6.5 million jobs, the reduction of the gross national product enormously, and this private right of action is a very, very important part of keeping wall street honest with the litigation which it has produced. there has been a letter filed by a number of entities in opposition headed by the u.s. chamber of commerce raising the point that -- quote -- "

in the worldcom case the s.e.c. recovered $750 million, the private litigants recovere recovered $6.85 billion. so there is a -- an enormous difference. this is a subject that i've had a deep concern about going back to my law school days when i wrote a comment for the yale law journal on the subject about the importance of private prosecutions. and private actions have been very important, damages under our antitrust laws, very, very important under -- under our securities laws. in 1995, we restricted the scope of discovery and i urge the president -- urged the president at that time to veto the bill, just a very brief personal story. i was in my condo late one night, 10:30, quarter to 11:00, i got a call from the whitehouse. and the -- from the white house. and the president came on the line and said, do you have a few minutes to let me read my veto message. i had more than a few minutes. i was very interested in the president's veto message. but the law, nonetheless, notwithstanding the veto, the law was modified

the bubble and predicted its bursting an early morning shift -- early warning shots of enrons and worldcomand as aesop of the past decade, it was fundamentally a brought failure of knowledge and information. a failure to understand the realities of economic activity at a very basic level, a failure to seek linkages and connections -- and as we saw in the past decade, it was fundamentally a broad failure of knowledge and information. thank god for colombia. -- columbia. there is the major academic voice of the citigroup ceo, who had the impeccable timing of being named the ceo in 2007, when the troubles in the global financial system may have already become manifest but not to their disastrous existential scope. the challenges he inherited -- >> we are going to leave this program now to go live to louisiana, where president obama is getting a firsthand look at the response to the b.p.-gulf of mexico oil spill. he met with bobby jindal and some of the first responders, and we expect him to make a statement. we expect him to talk about also, perhaps, the attempted car bomb incident in new yor

was part of the afl-cio legal team that won severance payments for laid-off workers from enron and worldcom. he graduated from the harvard law school and has an m.b.a. from the harvard business school. welcome, mr. silvers. we look forward to your testimony. >> thank you. thank you and good morning, chairman specter, senator kaufman, and staff. i am damon silvers. i am now the policy director of the afl-cio. i serve as the deputy chair of the congressional oversight panel for t.a.r.p. my testimony before this committee is on behalf of the afl-cio and not the congressional oversight panel, its staff, or its share. the financial crisis that began in 2007 has had a devastating effect on working americans. the u.s. economy lost 8 million jobs. pension funds saw their asset values decline by $3 billion, a drop of 30%. the markets have yet to fully recover. mass home foreclosures which not so long ago were a distant memory of the great depression now seem to be a permanent feature of american life running this year at the rate of 2.8 million foreclosures a year. finally the american public had to