"The World Does Go On, It Just Looks Terrible"
| Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman gave a fascinating talk at the Japan Society recently, on the nature of the financial crisis, the importance of financial regulations, and how the internet and the 24-hour news cycle complicate the recovery. You can watch the talk here. [%comments]
T McGurran
In my view, the question about "who is the one culprit" is a bit specious - as Stephan indicates, there is plenty of blame to go around. However, if the question was rephrased to ask "what one element, if it participated differently, would have had a fundamental preventative impact", then I think the criticism of the rating agencies is spot on. No other single actor had more of an opportunity to prevent this crisis than the rating agencies had to properly assess the risk of the mortgage backed securities.
Tom
l
could not get 5 minutes into this talk. the constant "uhh" and "ummm", and "hmmm"ing is just too distracting from whatever message he is trying to convey.