Question recovery. guest: i assume you are talking about geithner but he is just a staffer and he is giving obama bad advice but obama put geithner in that position because he believes that. you get rid of geithner and bring in another who is around the resolving door of wall street you get the same bad as vice. neil: we are getting word that the senate banking committee is looking into the s&p downgrade and people are shooting the messenger. where does this go? guest: well, s&p and the other rating agencies do not exactly have a go track record. they have miss sod many big calls going back to enron and worldcom and fannie mae and freddie mac and greece and portugal, and if you read the s&p report it is politically driven document. i don t put much stock in them,
How is throwing reforms off the tail, how is that listening or seeking a solution? neil: we did not hear anything about official washington today including keeping geithner in the post, that would indicate they will change. guest: look the issues are bigger than geithner. we have a structural problem. we lack leadership and . neil: don t you get rid of the coach if you are off to 0-8 start? guest: in our system that is hard to do. neil: on wall street, are they in meltdown mode? guest: i don t think so. the balance sheets have been cleaned up and they took the hit for the toxic waste. neil: is this overdoing it? close to a bear market. guest: the market is not wall street per se. you are seeing capitulation. on thursday, when they violated support levels there was a lot of program selling. neil: is there more to go?
neil: geithner says he is not going anywhere as more folks from every where call for get near to get the heck out of here and joe grano says maybe this is the time for a shakeup, the former chairman of ubc who, a year ago, i think a year ago, you were talking about being guarded, being ready, we are not out of the woods. now what? guest: it is worse. the analogy is . no zeus and the gods can t talk to each other. neil: a family reunion. guest: we need leadership and definitive programs. neil: when you heard the president speak today that does not provide leadership? guest: not to my mine it was written on a tell prompter i want him to look at the eye of
Up part of a small group of leading executive, that the white house could turn to and the rumors have been you have never, ever been interested. guest: i am happy to be at google. neil: if the president asked you to join for the good of your country, so to speak. guest: i will stay at google. it is a great place. i will not talk about private conversations. we will stay focused on google and me. neil: no interest in beginning into government? guest: i prefer the private sector which is the economic engine of creativity in america and the proper police for me i will tell you that i think the country criticism of geithner is probably misplaced. neil: but you have seen it in corporate america when it looks lousy you take it ahead of the team. guest: judge the government by the sum of what it does, right? overall, this government has not yet addressed, in fact, the settlement last week does not
Didn t happen today? guest: i was surprised it didn t happen in 2008 when the markets were very different. rather than looking at a specific downgrade we will look at the overall issue, the fundamental problem that the government is spending way too much money and the projection is it is out-of-control. this is a problem with congress, it has been true for 3 years, not a new problem, true for both parties and the way to solve this is to have a real conversation of how much overspending we want. it is okay to overspend a little bit, a little bit of deficit spending is stimulative but we are way out of that. way, way, way out of that. neil: in washington these days, too much is said, but this is a delicts position, a great deal of criticism of geithner, that they have to change the team. if you your name always comes