Saturday, February 06, 2010

Profiles in Wall Street Leadership.


"At a dinner with top bankers at the Fed a few months later, as he (former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson)tells it, the most powerful chief executives on Wall Street were mournful addicts begging to be forced to quit their opiates. “Isn’t there something you can do to order us not take all of these risks?” Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince asked; Blackstone’s chief, Stephen Schwarzman, said he couldn’t resist taking easy money. What does it mean that these kingpins knew what they were doing and were begging to be stopped? Mr. Paulson won’t say." -- Max Abelson, in the NYO