Don't know if anyone caught Paul O'Neill on Newshour with Jim Lehrer. I think the man should be committed since he's clearly insane:
How about this part:
But I think what's important is the long-term resiliency of
the American economy is there and I said the other day, I
should not as a regular practice make forecasts but I
believe our economy is so strong compared to all of the
other economies in the world, the American people are
such a great people and we know how it create
productivity, we will have new highs in our market indices
in the foreseeable future.
pbs.org
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JIM LEHRER: A Newsmaker interview with the Secretary
of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill. Mr. Secretary, welcome.
PAUL O'NEILL: Thank you.
JIM LEHRER: The President said there has been a shock
to the economy. Give us a feel for the magnitude of that
shock now as it looks over a week later.
Economic recovery
PAUL O'NEILL: Well, Jim, I
think we don't really know yet
how long, how big the shock is
going to be or how long it's
going to last. If you look at
ground zero, which I had an
opportunity to do on Monday,
the emotional feeling that one has in seeing that close and
not you through the eyes of television it's just
overwhelming. And there is just no doubt that the
devastation there is complete and total and what your tape
was showing you for individual business, a very real thing.
But when you think about the rest of America and you
think about the crops growing in the fields and people
going to... back to work as the president said this last
Monday, and doing their work and providing goods and
services to each other, I think that the direct damage to the
American economy is isolated in the sense of ground zero,
is isolated there, and it's obviously severe and in a human
sense really compelling. In a ten trillion dollar economy we
have got a lot of other activity going on.
I think the base question that we have got to deal with
here, because economically there is so much about
expectations and confidence, how quickly we recover our
sense of emotion, I think on September 10 we were
beginning to move out of a very low level of economic
growth and now what we have got to do is assess what
else we might do and need to do in order to get ourselves
moving back on that growth path, Jim.
JIM LEHRER: Well, one of the
measurements, of course, is the
stock market. It was down
another 144 points today. Does
that concern you?
PAUL O'NEILL: I would like
for it to go up every day. And of course I don't like it going
down 144 points. But earlier in the day it was down 400.
In the last half hour of the market today the Dow Jones
Industrial Average recovered over 200 points. So I think
the important thing, most important thing about the market
is, the U.S. exchanges are operating.
It is a phenomenal thing that the people involved in making
markets were... when they were at ground zero were able
to recover in a short period of time. It's a huge victory over
the terrorists.
Now, where should we be in terms of what we would like
to see for levels in the stock market? Everyone anticipated
we were going to have a runoff of maybe as much as 10
percent; Monday was only minus 7 percent. Today was
minus 144 points. Tomorrow may bring something better.
But I think what's important is the long-term resiliency of
the American economy is there and I said the other day, I
should not as a regular practice make forecasts but I
believe our economy is so strong compared to all of the
other economies in the world, the American people are
such a great people and we know how it create
productivity, we will have new highs in our market indices
in the foreseeable future.
JIM LEHRER: How important should the average
American, you're talking about confidence and whatever,
how important should the average American feel the stock
market is to the recovery, to our getting over the shock?
PAUL O'NEILL: Well I'll tell
you, these days even though
some Americans may not know
it they are investors in America
through company pension funds
and the 401Ks and all the rest of
that and 70 or 80 percent of us
have some wealth tied up in the stock market and so we
should all care about it. We all contribute....
JIM LEHRER: So it's important?
PAUL O'NEILL: Absolutely, because we all contribute to
the reason for it. And it's an index over time of how well
we're doing as a country. We have been doing well, we
will do well again; we will grow faster again and we will do
it soon.
Rescuing the airlines
JIM LEHRER: The airline industry, America Airlines,
20,000 layoffs today, I read something just a moment ago,
they expect 100,000 people total in the airline industry to
be laid off; that doesn't count the 30,000 from Boeing and
other manufacturing companies that are being hit here.
What is the federal government prepared to do to help
these people?
PAUL O'NEILL: It's a subject we are been working on
the last several days. I think we need to work against a set
of principles in all the sectors that we need to be
concerned about, and the airlines industry is not the only
one, we need to first start with what's the immediate need
-- the airlines need cash. They need liquidity; we should
give them liquidity and we should do it quickly.
JIM LEHRER: Give them money and loan guarantees --
whatever?
PAUL O'NEILL: Money.
JIM LEHRER: Money.
PAUL O'NEILL: I think we shouldn't fool around and we
shouldn't do things that complicate the issue. If they need
money, we should give them money. At the end of the day
a loan guarantee is a substitute for money. We ought to
give them money and we need to figure out a way that
gives them money without making them prosperous
independent of this tragedy that's happened to them and to
the rest of the country. So we need to give them money…
JIM LEHRER: In other words, compensate for what
they're losing as a result of the tragedy -
PAUL O'NEILL: Right.
JIM LEHRER: -- but for nothing else?
PAUL O'NEILL: Well, no - no -
JIM LEHRER: No?
PAUL O'NEILL: -- there are some other things we need
to do. I believe we need to socialize the cost safety and by
that I mean, we, the people of the United States, need to
pay for a secure system of safety for airports and airliners,
so that we can all rest easily. And when we when we get
on a plane, we know we're going where we intended to go
and we're not going to get hijacked.
And I think we should effectively tackle ourselves to
provide security for air transportation in this country; we
should do the same for air marshals. And there is another
thing we need to do: We need to accept as a societal
burden the insurance cost of terrorism. So we shouldn't
expect the airlines to suffer the cost, which is enormous in
its potential, for acts of terrorism; we need to accept that
cost, including those costs associated with terrorism that
happened last week.
JIM LEHRER: So we're talking, the airlines asked today
for $17 billion. That sounds cheap laying out what you just
said?
PAUL O'NEILL: Well, I don't think so. You know, I
think…
JIM LEHRER: I don't mean
cheap. I mean, it sounds that
$17 (billion) may not pay for
everything you outlined?
PAUL O'NEILL: Well, I
don't think so, Jim. I think
maybe we can do this for less
than what the "ask" is at the beginning.
But I think in all of these things we should operate from
principles and what the principles produce in terms of a
bill, that's what we should do. I don't think we should... we
shouldn't decide that we're not going to have complete
safety because it's costs too much and we shouldn't decide
is that we're not going to give the airlines cash liquidity in
the short-term because it costs too much.
A new stimulus package?
JIM LEHRER: All right. Beyond the airline industry, the
President is going to address the Congress tomorrow and
the nation tomorrow night, lay out some, I guess a stimulus
package, is that right, that goes beyond the airline industry?
PAUL O'NEILL: Well, I don't know. You know what,
one of the things that my good friend, Alan Greenspan, and
I have been talking about is, we think we need to assess
where the economy is and how it feels for a little bit of time
and see what kind of data we're getting before we lurch off
into a massive stimulus program. Right now there is an
energy to go and take action, and the kind of things we
need to look at, we need to talk to people who run major
credit card businesses and find out what the level of
activity is.
I had a little conversation today with one of the major
people, and they told me a week after the terrible events,
their credit card activity is running about 20 percent lower
than it was at this time last year.
Now we need to watch over the next week or ten days, or
two weeks, and see if there is a recovery and people go
back to normal spending patterns and the rest and assess
how much stimulus we need. I think we should not rush to
judgment about these important issues, because the
arguments we were having a few weeks ago about not
overspending, still have a validity. We need to be balanced
and careful about the decisions we make for those things
that are immediate, like airline liquidity, we need to do it
right now. For things that should take little bit more
judgment we need to be careful.
JIM LEHRER: So, in a nutshell, if people are expecting the
President of the United States to lay out some detailed
economic stimulus package tomorrow night, they're going
to be disappointed?
PAUL O'NEILL: Well I wouldn't say that. You know the
President is a free agent and I think he values my advice,
but he takes his own. And so what he says tomorrow night
I think we'll all be interested in looking at. And a suspect
that he will lay out maybe some principles of what we
should be thinking about in the event there is a decision
made that we need to have a substantial stimulus. And I
must say I have some ideas of my own -- how would I
craft a stimulus program -- which I'm not going to tell you.
JIM LEHRER: So I shouldn't ask, right?
PAUL O'NEILL: No, no,
please don't ask because I'm not
going to tell you about it. But of
course there are some things that
could make a difference that
would really provide stimulus in
the event that we need to pop
more money out.
JIM LEHRER: But the President hasn't asked you for your
ideas yet?
PAUL O'NEILL: Oh, yes, indeed, but I'm not going yes
indeed but I'm not going to reveal them here, Jim.
JIM LEHRER: Whether your ideas or somebody else's
ideas, does kind of tax relief - cutting capital gains taxes or
payroll taxes?
PAUL O'NEILL: Let's look at the principles of where we
are. Up to this period through this year our economy has
been running at a lower rate than we would like -- not
because of weakness in the consumer sector. Consumers
have been doing well. Housing starts have been run inning
at a very good level. Automobile sales have been running
at a very good level.
The weakness in our economy this year has been on the
investment side. Companies have not been investing at the
rates that they were in the last four or five years. And so
the weakness in our economy has been on the investment
side -- not on the consumer spending side. And so if you
work from a set of principles, you ask yourself the
question, what is it that we could do that would add to the
investment side of our economic equation?
And there are a variety of ways that one can think about
that problem. And so I think, again, we need to work from
principles. You know, there are advocates of a whole host
of things that are so familiar they almost are not worth
talking about. And I think one of things, again, we need to
be careful in this circumstance, is that we not try out
everybody's favorite idea which they've been trying to get
enacted for the last 50 years and it gets swept into the
vanguard of now is our chance. And we need to be careful
about what we do.
Tracing the money trail
JIM LEHRER: Finally, Mr. Secretary, the Treasury
Department is involved in tracing money.
PAUL O'NEILL: Yes.
JIM LEHRER: And some new measures were announced
by your Department about trying to find the money of
terrorists including Osama bin Laden's. What's the most
dramatic thing you're going to do differently now?
PAUL O'NEILL: Now we're
going to do several important
things, Jim.
The first thing we're going to do,
which we have need to do for a
long time, is we're going to take
the handcuffs off ourselves so that we have an ability to use
the information sources of the nation security agency and
the CIA and the FBI and all of the other law enforcement
agencies, include those of the Treasury Department, which
include Customs and Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms
officers, and we're going to collect a list and are already in
the process of collecting a worldwide list of known
terrorists and suspected terrorists, and we're going to go
after them in every possible way we can with the
information sources that are available to identify the
connections they have with financial markets, with
telephone companies, with credit card companies, and
systematically take their financial means away from them.
JIM LEHRER: I know you're new to the job. It's a difficult
question, but as a result of what happened on September
11, and you know reviewing what the Treasury
Department was doing, were you disappointed in what you
found in this area?
PAUL O'NEILL: No... Well I'll tell you what, for the last
15 maybe even 25 years, this nation has had a program
aimed at so-called money laundering, which is trying to get
at evildoers who are moving cash around the world
economy.
And there has been an enormous amount of activity
upwards of $700 million a year spent on this subject. And
when I began asking the question of what have we gotten
for the money we spent, I must say I was very
disappointed that over this 25 year period of time, there's
one famous case that produced a significant amount of
money that was caught.
And I think, you know, this is a general point, that too
often there is an acceptance of activity for progress. And I
believe we should not tolerate that in peacetime or in
wartime. We should insist that we get value for money
spent. And I think there is no doubt we're going to do that
now. And it's importantly going to be possible do it,
because we're going to stop the idea that we can't use all
of our assets, because we can't chase people into their rat
holes and get them because of their civil liberties.
JIM LEHRER: So some civil liberties are going to have to
go by the board?
PAUL O'NEILL: Well, I think for those people who are
known terrorists, we shouldn't grant them the use of our
civil liberties to extend their, their petulance, if you will.
JIM LEHRER: All right. Mr. Secretary, thank you very
much.
PAUL O'NEILL: Good to be with you. |
