Have bankers gotten an unfair rap in the past few years?
Yes. They get a very unfair rap. Not that they didn’t speculate, but we had an expansion in this country that any rational person should have known was not sustainable. You can’t have everybody making money in the stock market every day. But we all wanted the party to continue. How [else] can you explain the Bernie Madoff phenomenon?
How do you explain it, then?
Nobody cared. Everybody just thought, Where did Madoff get the idea? A cynic would say Social Security, [though] I would never say that. But it’s exactly the same thing, isn’t it? I also think people should have asked why he could outperform like that. There’s no free lunch.
An unfair rap? Are yo kidding. This is like saying that Satan has been given a bad rep by the media. Please. Larry