Inside Job Transcript - Final Version - 9.30.10 - Sony Pictures Classics

Inside Job transcript – Sony Pictures – September 2010 59
MARTIN WOLF: There are fewer competitors, and a lot of smaller banks have been
taken over by big ones. JP Morgan today is even bigger than it was before.
NOURIEL ROUBINI: JP Morgan took over first Bear Stearns and then WAMU; Bank of
America took over Countrywide and Merrill Lynch; Wells Fargo took over Wachovia.
02:21:26.25
NARRATOR: After the crisis, the financial industry, including the Financial Services
Roundtable, worked harder than ever to fight reform. The financial sector employs 3,000
lobbyists, more than five for each member of Congress.
02:21:41.04
CHARLES FERGUSON: Do you think the financial services industry has excessive
political influence in the United States?
SCOTT TALBOTT: No. I think that every person in, in the w-, in the country is
represented here in Washington.
CHARLES FERGUSON: And you think that all segments of American society have
equal and fair access to the system?
SCOTT TALBOTT: The, you can walk into any hearing room, uh, that you would like.
Yes, I do.
CHARLES FERGUSON: Um, one could walk into any hearing room; one can not
necessarily write the kind of lobbying checks that your industry writes, or engage in the
level of political contributions that your industry engages in.
02:22:16.28
NARRATOR: Between 1998 and 2008, the financial industry spent over 5 billion dollars
on lobbying and campaign contributions. And since the crisis, they're spending even
more money.
02:22:30.07 The financial industry also exerts its influence in a more subtle way; one
that most Americans don't know about. It has corrupted the study of economics itself.
GEORGE SOROS: Deregulation had tremendous financial and intellectual support.
Because, uh, uh, people argued it for their own benefit. The economics profession was
the main source of that illusion.
02:22:58.15