Bethany McLean Quotes
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Fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in isolation, without looking at the big picture, would be short-sighted.
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What's good for the financial industry probably isn't good for you.
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In capital we trust. Capital is our savior, our holy grail, our fountain of youth, or at least health, for banks.
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Capital isn't this pile of money sitting somewhere; it's an accounting construct.
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Proponents of privatization argued that cities and states needed private capital to fund all the upgrades that our decaying infrastructure so desperately needed.
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The worst story I ever wrote was after the conviction of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. My co-author and I wrote a piece for 'Fortune' saying everything's going to be different now.
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The big banks advise cities about whether privatization is a wise choice. They also control the ability of states and cities to access the market for their financing needs.
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Before Enron, I think people were a bit more naive about the way things worked, and I think Enron pulled the curtain back on unsavoury practices that turned out to be a lot more widespread.
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Choices of right or wrong are not presented to you in black and white. If they were, I'm sure most people would choose white.
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When Warren Buffett invests in a company, he is conferring upon that company something very unique: his credibility.
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Google worries - and rightly so - about how hard it is for a big company to come up with the next hot thing.
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I'm not a big believer in the power of more regulation to fix things. I think it can almost be more dangerous because it provides the illusion that things have been fixed without the substance.
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Privatization of assets that most of us consider public goods - like airports and highways - has a long, often-uncontroversial history.
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Home ownership was the fig leaf for the rise in subprime lending. But that was really about cash-out refinancings, not buying homes.