Bloomberg Defends Banks, Decries Government Dysfunction

David Freedlander — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:56:18 -0400

Mayor Michael Bloomberg sat down with George Stephanopoulos this morning and said that the problem with the economy was that it is just coming out of a period where people took too much risk, and is now deep in one where nobody wants to take a risk.

And the way out of this problem is two-fold: Washington needs to get its act together, and everybody ought to lay-off the bankers.

"Why are people unwilling to take risks. One is we vilified everybody who did take a risk before. So the banks said, 'Wait a second. You are going after us because we made loans, which maybe in retrospect they weren't all that good but we were out there doing what everybody wanted and expanding the economy and so why am I going to run that risk again?'"

Stephanopoulos pointed out then that a lot of those loans were based on frauds.

"There were some, but a small percentage," Bloomberg said. "Most people that got loans still had their houses. Most buildings that got a loan to be built are still functioning and full of tenants."

The problem, he added, was that "at this point we have regulation that changes every day" and that we have a "tax policy that nobody can understand."

"We have a government that fundamentally is not functioning."

The mayor also said that "the deck is stacked" against a third party presidential run and that one of the two major parties would win the presidency in 2012.

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Politicker » Bloomberg Defends Banks, Decries Government Dysfunction

Bloomberg Defends Banks, Decries Government Dysfunction