From Fareed Zakaria GPS, Eliot Spitzer weighed in on the regulatory system that is in place overseeing Wall Street, the bonuses that have everyone outraged and what he thinks of the job President Obama is doing so far.
ZAKARIA: Was the regulation -- was the regulatory regime in place strong enough? And I'm thinking particularly of the New York Fed, which was headed by Tim Geithner, of the SEC?
Where do you see the flaw having been over the last few years?
SPITZER: Here's my answer to that. The regulatory system was structurally flawed, but that's not why this happened.
After the last round of scandals -- Enron, et al. -- we passed Sarbanes-Oxley. And we said, aha, we've solved the problem. Now we have another set of scandals.
There are enough laws, enough regulations on the books for smart, aggressive regulators and prosecutors to make all the cases. What was missing was judgment. And you can't legislate judgment. You can't regulate judgment. Either the people who are the regulators will walk into a bank and say "Your leverage is too great. We are going to take actions to pull it back," or "This type of investment is flawed," or they won't. You can't pass a law that says, you must use sound judgment.
Bubbles have been there through history, through over-regulation and under-regulation. This is a question of judgment and of failure of judgment.
When I was attorney general, people said, "Oh, you're using this crazy little statute," the Martin Act in New York, "to bring all these cases." The Martin Act had a simple anti-fraud provision. That's all we used.
The federal government has exponentially more regulatory power than we did. What was lacking was the judgment, the tenacity, the desire to rein in a financial system that was spiraling out of control.
ZAKARIA: How do you think President Obama is handling this crisis?
SPITZER: Well, I think he is doing stupendously. I mean, I'm a huge fan of his. I think we all have to be and should be, if only because he has been thrust into a dynamic that is almost impossible.
He is trying to put out not 500 small fires, 500 forest fires simultaneously. And he is addressing them sequentially, trying to keep a political coalition together. But it's very hard.
And I think one of the largest, most difficult tasks that he has is to control the outrage that is brewing in the public -- sympathize with it and garner it, but use it to get good policy, not policy based upon anger.
Populism, if we go to the other extreme -- and we had libertarianism masquerading as capitalism for the past 30 years. That didn't work. And we knew it wouldn't work.
I'm worried that we will go to the other extreme and end up with rank populism. That could be just as dangerous.
And it's very hard to craft the reasoned policies that make the market work without losing the support of the public. That's what he's trying to do. It's a very difficult task.
He is a brilliant communicator and a brilliant leader, and I think we all have to hope that he succeeds.
ZAKARIA: Do you worry about this kind of populist anger when you watch the outrage over the bonuses?
SPITZER: Yes, yes. The outrage is legitimate, but it is being fomented by sort of a faux populism by many on Capitol Hill who saw this coming, who knew this was going on. And so, I look at them and I say, "Come on, guys. You're supposed to be more mature. Express the anger, but then say, how do we solve it? Don't just throw more oil on the fire."
And I am worried about that. And I'm worried that it will be destructive to our capitalist system. And I've said since the very beginning, that my energy was directed at preserving and protecting capitalism.
The libertarians didn't understand it. Populists don't understand it. But capitalism is what we want to preserve.
ZAKARIA: A simple legal question. If you were in a position where you could do something about it, what would you do about the bonuses? Legally, what strategy would you employ?
SPITZER: I think I might go back to a very old tort theory of unjust enrichment -- contract theory, tort theory -- and say, you know what, guys? There's a theory in the law that says -- a couple of theories -- one impossibility saying, AIG just doesn't have the money to pay you. And absent the federal infusion, it wouldn't have it, so we can't pay.
And second I would say, unjust enrichment. You simply don't deserve it. It's an equitable argument. Some courts might go for it, some courts might not.
But as a practical matter, as the president of the United States, I think I would call the CEOs into the Oval Office. And I would say, "Guys, this is untenable. We're all going to have to suck it up a little bit and show the American people that we know what it means to be part of a community, and share the sacrifice. Let's see if we can't solve this without the legal wrangling."
And I bet he could. I have no doubt that President Obama could do that.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back with Eliot Spitzer right after this.
