January 18, 2025 • 16 mins
Gary Gensler’s tenure as Wall Street’s top regulator is coming to an end, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission chair is reflecting on his time at the agency.
In an interview with host David Gura, Gensler responds to his critics, discusses his concerns about AI, China and crypto — and shares the advice he gave President-elect Trump’s pick to replace him.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm David Gerro, host of The Big Take, and today
I'm sharing an episode from my series of Exit interviews.
I spoke with senior officials in the Biden administration ahead
of Donald Trump's inauguration as they prepared to wind down
their work. These conversations were wide ranging, and in this one,
taped on January eighth, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary
Gensler discusses his approach to the job, the blowback he's
(00:29):
gotten from critics, including President Elect Trump himself, and the
challenges he expects AI and Crypto will pose for his successor.
Gary Gensler has less than two weeks left as Wall
Street's top cop as the chair of the u S
Securities and Exchange Commission. He took the job in April
of twenty twenty one, not too long after the Game
(00:50):
Stop Short Squeeze, and during Gensler's tenure, the SEC has
taken action against a number of high profile crypto executives.
He's focused a lot on protecting investors, which is central
to the agency's mission. Bloomberg's Jonathan Faraoh asked Gensler about
that in the context of crypto and meme stocks in
his first interview with Bloomberg as SEC chair, just a
(01:11):
few months after he.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Started, Gary, what do you do for a group of
investors that don't want your protection? Well, I'm going to
be animated every day in this job by working families,
and working families need the protection.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Gensler's approach to enforcements in the world of crypto especially
made him unpopular. He maintains most cryptocurrencies are in fact securities,
and therefore are subject to regulation by the SEC. President
elect Donald Trump campaigned in part on getting rid of Gensler.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
One day one, I will fire Gary Gensler and appoint
a new SEC chair.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I didn't know who's that unpopular? Well, I didn't know
who's that unpopular.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Let me say it again.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
On day one, I will fire Gary Gestler.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Who.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, Trump will not have to do that. On November
twenty first, Gensler announced his decision to step down on
inauguration Day at noon, which led to much rejoicing in
the world of crypto. At least on TikTok, Oh my god,
it's finally here. Gary Gandler officially resigns from the SEC.
This demon has been torturing the entire crypto industry for
(02:31):
like three to four years, literally regulating through enforcement and
going off to nearly every major crypto company in the
United States. This week I went to Washington to interview
the SEC chair. It's the third in a series of
conversations I've had with members of President Biden's administration who
are leaving government, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary
(02:53):
of State Anthony Blincoln. Let's go down to Bloomberg News
as David Gara, who is sitting down with the outgoing
chair of the SEC in Washington. David Ordio, Thank you
very much, and welcome to our listeners and viewers worldwide.
I'm here with Chair Gary Gensler in his office in Washington,
d C. Great to speak with you, Great to be
with you, David. Part of it was live on television
and radio, but we kept the conversation going when the
(03:15):
cameras cut away. I asked him to reflect on his
time as the US's top securities regulator and what it's
like to be called out by the past and future
president along with the world's richest man, and what's next
for the SEC. I'm David Gura and This is the
big take from Bloomberg News Today. On the show, an
(03:37):
exit interview with the thirty third Chair of the US
Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, his views on crypto,
on AI, on China, and what advice he has for
his successor. I want to start first just by asking
you how you're feeling here with less than two weeks
left in your term. You happen subject to fair amount
(03:59):
of attacks, some thank you all. How have you processed
all of that?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
You walk into this central square and you debate these
important things for three hundred and thirty million Americans. I've
worked over the years with Hillary Clinton on a number
of campaigns, and I remember Hillary saying once like, if
you're not willing to be attacked, you can't go into
the public square and debate policy. And so I think
(04:26):
it's part of our great democracy. It's a great privilege
to be in a role like this. But what's remarkable
about this role is it oversees the one hundred and
twenty trillion dollar capital market, which touches everything in our economy.
Because you've got to raise money for most of what
we do in our economy, and people save you ask
about the attacks and things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
That's what public policy is about.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You came into this job, you gave a big speech
in which you analogize the crypto world to the wild West.
I guess that makes you the sheriff. So as you
get ready to hang up your spurs, jeez, less of
a wild I've really been laboring the metaphor. But is
it less of a wild West than it was? As
you leave this office.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
My daughters if they ever watched this interview, well, as
we're your spurs, dad, I think that we've done some
good things. Look, I came in. My predecessor, Jake Clayton,
who was in this office, had also tried to address
this new emerging part of finance. Jay was trying to
address it, and he brought eighty enforcement actions in this area.
(05:28):
We've brought in about one hundred in our four years.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It was consistent.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I've been around finance for over four decades, and everything
in the market's trade on a mixture of fundamentals and
sentiment at any given time. I've never seen a field
that's so much wrapped up in sentiment and not so
much about fundamentals. And these ten than fifteen thousand projects
(05:53):
many of them will not survive. They're like venture capital investments.
They're not going to survive. But they're are also a
fair number of small pump and dump schemes and other
things in this And of course we've lived through a
few years where they became notorious, but they're in jail.
(06:14):
The sambank and Freeds and the do Kwans where tens
of billions of dollars were lost by investors.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Settle something for me, because I think when you came into.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Office, a lot of people looked at your immediate background,
having researched a lot of digital assets, worked on them
at MIT, and thought that you would be perhaps a
champion of them. Has there been an evolution in the
way that you approach crypto over that transition from academia
to hear or while you've been here, people think you
are somebody who's adamantly opposed.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
To here's the evolution.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
When you're in academia or when you're not in this job,
you can study something and observe it as I did,
and try to teach students what's the value proposition about
this new technology, what's the value proposition of this new
investment vehicles?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But then when you're in this job.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
This is a chair of a five member commission over
roughly five thousand people. That's a law enforcement agency, and
this is a field rife with challenges and non compliance
with the securities laws. You take an oath of office,
you do what you can to protect the investing public.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
On that note, we saw in this last election cycle
one hundred and thirty five million dollars spent by crypto
companies on races across the country.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Did you notice that very few, if any, actually advertised
on crypto?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
I didn't note that.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Just does that give you concern the role that the
crypto industry is playing not just within these halls, but
across Washington, across the country in those rings.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I just think of every day investors.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I think it's very consequential to every day investors that
we put in place rules that insiders of companies, seniors
executives can no longer just file a plan on a
Monday when they had material non public information and sell
their stock on that same Monday. But we've put in
(08:09):
place rules that they will have to wait ninety days.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
And why ninety.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Days because then they might release that material non public information.
So I think that's what we really focused on and
that every day investors have benefited from that.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Let me pivot to risks.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And you've sounded the alarm about artificial intelligence at FSOC,
you gave a big speech at you a law school,
you did one at the National Press Club.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's something that you're clearly thinking.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I even wrote about it when I was at MITRE
you go four and a half years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
We are facing now four years where one geopolitical consultancy
says we're having AI unbound, that there will be less
regulatory interest in AI.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
What are the consequences of that?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
As you see, it's the financial markets not having anything
close to a robust regulatory regime for AI.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
It's very dramatic advancements. I think it's going to transform
so many parts of our economy in good ways. We
are automating this, and the Industrial Revolution was automating this
and this, and for those that couldn't see, I meant
we're automating our brains and not our biceps, our biceps
(09:19):
and our thighs. And I think it will boost productivity,
but there'll be a lot of disruptions in terms of
the capital markets, in terms of finance. I think about
the challenges of the conflicts if your robo advisor, are
they giving you advice on behalf of the asset manager
(09:41):
or you?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And who are they putting first? And it could be
in some.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Opaque mathematical formula deep inside the algorithm.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Another challenge facing the agency it could see its budget
slashed under the incoming Trump administration, which is promised to
reduce on government agencies across the board.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
That's in a moment.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
SEC chair Gary Gensler has already announced he's leaving his
job at noon on inauguration Day. It's been well established
that President Elect Trump would not have left him in
the job. I wanted to ask Gensler about Trump's plans
for the SEC and other agencies. The ethos, it seems,
of this incoming administration is to cut staff and cut
bureaucracy here in Washington. What would that mean for this
(10:35):
agency if you had a less stout.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I think it would be unfortunate because we're already spread
too thin. We get forty or fifty thousand tips, complaints
and referrals a year a year a year now back
to an earlier subject, I think eighteen percent of those
are from the crypto field, and at any given time,
we only have the staff to maybe investigate some small portions.
(11:01):
So we're constantly trioshing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Has there been an SEC DOGE summit and has anyone
working for that new Elon musk I vet Ramaswami outfit
come to the agency to talk about potential changes or.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I think you.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Know, it might sound familiar to what Tony Blinkoln taught you.
There's one president at a time, there's one commission at
a time. I'm proud of this agency, but that which
folks do after January twentieth take up at that point
in time.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Looking ahead, Have you had a conversation with Paul Atkins,
your presumptive successor here, and if so, what did you
stress to him is most important to think about as
he would take over the High Agency.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Paul and I did catch up.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
You know, he knows this agency, he's worked at this
agency chair and he was a commissioner for six years,
and so I won't say all the things a private conversation,
but Richard Breeden was the first person to hire Paul
and to the agency. Richard was chair under President Bush
(12:09):
number forty one, and I shared with Paul the advice
that Richard gave me coming into this job, and Richard said, remember,
every single day in the job is one day closer
to when you will join the former's club. And you
can take that a number of ways, but I took
that as Richard's way of saying, every day is such
(12:29):
a privilege, use it well, use it on behalf of
the American public. And so that was my main advice
to Paul.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
A sort of big thing question just about financial regulation
and the US's role in the world. You've said, though
the US equity markets are the deepest, most liquid in
the world, we can't take that leadership for granted. At
this moment of transition. There will be some I imagine,
who wonder just about the certainty of regulation in this
country and how the US holds onto that position of
prominence or preeminence in the world.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Are we doing ourselves a disservice?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by having these
kind of radical changes in leadership of regulatory agencies. So
it went from Jake Clayton to you. You had your own
regulatory agenda. Now we'll go, presumably to a Paul Atkins one,
and he'll prioritize certain things push other things to the wayside.
Investors love certainty. Is there an inherent lack of certainty
in the way that we have financial regulation in this country.
(13:24):
That's detrimental.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I think democracies are a very good thing. The American
public gets to speak through their votes as to who
sits and seats of consequence like I sit in. I
think what's really important for regardless of who's in this seat,
is that it can't take for granted they were going
to be number one, and that their capital markets might
(13:49):
be the deepest and liquid now.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But if they get more.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Costly, if they get rickety and unstable in any way,
if they favor certain folks rather than having a really
competitive environment where you have equal and open access to
the capital markets, full access, I should say, and fair access,
(14:17):
then we could give up our mantle. And it relates
to the dollars role in the world. A lot of
people talk about the dollar as a reserve currency. I say,
that's interesting, important, maybe, but it's really about our capital
markets that are forty to forty five percent of the
world's capital markets. Our stock market is sixty trillion dollars
in size, the French stock market, the UK stock market.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Three trillion. Twe to three trillion.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
We have single companies that have market values more than that,
even the Chinese stock markets maybe a twelve thirteen trillion.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
But we can't take it for granted.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Got to keep it good, disclosure, free of fraud, manipulation,
and really have as best you can and competitive all
to all trading. And then markets go up, markets go down,
and you know, people get to decide what risks they
want to take.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Lastly, what's next for you?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Do you have plans for what you'll do come January
twentieth when you leave this job.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I don't have anything do analyx on this, on this program.
It really is a remarkable agency. And I want to
hand it off well to the next team. And I'm
very focused, of course on the staff, the great staff
here over these next ten days as well, and then
(15:40):
hand it.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Over to others that will have the privilege.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
As Richard Breden said that each day is one day
closer to when they're join the former's club.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Sure againstter, Thank you very much, Thank you appreciate it,
Thank you. This is the Big from Bloomberg News. I'm
David Gura. This episode is produced by David Fox and
Jessica Beck. It was mixed and sound designed by Alex
Segura and fact check by Adriana Tapia. Our senior producer
(16:11):
is Naomi Shaven, who also edited this episode with Aaron
Edwards and Meghan Howard. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Our executive producer is the cole Beemster Bore. Sage Bauman
is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you liked this episode,
make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever
you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
We'll be back next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm David Gerro, host of The Big Take, and today
I'm sharing an episode from my series of Exit interviews.
I spoke with senior officials in the Biden administration ahead
of Donald Trump's inauguration as they prepared to wind down
their work. These conversations were wide ranging, and in this one,
taped on January eighth, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary
Gensler discusses his approach to the job, the blowback he's
(00:29):
gotten from critics, including President Elect Trump himself, and the
challenges he expects AI and Crypto will pose for his successor.
Gary Gensler has less than two weeks left as Wall
Street's top cop as the chair of the u S
Securities and Exchange Commission. He took the job in April
of twenty twenty one, not too long after the Game
(00:50):
Stop Short Squeeze, and during Gensler's tenure, the SEC has
taken action against a number of high profile crypto executives.
He's focused a lot on protecting investors, which is central
to the agency's mission. Bloomberg's Jonathan Faraoh asked Gensler about
that in the context of crypto and meme stocks in
his first interview with Bloomberg as SEC chair, just a
(01:11):
few months after he.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Started, Gary, what do you do for a group of
investors that don't want your protection? Well, I'm going to
be animated every day in this job by working families,
and working families need the protection.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Gensler's approach to enforcements in the world of crypto especially
made him unpopular. He maintains most cryptocurrencies are in fact securities,
and therefore are subject to regulation by the SEC. President
elect Donald Trump campaigned in part on getting rid of Gensler.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
One day one, I will fire Gary Gensler and appoint
a new SEC chair.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I didn't know who's that unpopular? Well, I didn't know
who's that unpopular.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Let me say it again.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
On day one, I will fire Gary Gestler.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Who.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, Trump will not have to do that. On November
twenty first, Gensler announced his decision to step down on
inauguration Day at noon, which led to much rejoicing in
the world of crypto. At least on TikTok, Oh my god,
it's finally here. Gary Gandler officially resigns from the SEC.
This demon has been torturing the entire crypto industry for
(02:31):
like three to four years, literally regulating through enforcement and
going off to nearly every major crypto company in the
United States. This week I went to Washington to interview
the SEC chair. It's the third in a series of
conversations I've had with members of President Biden's administration who
are leaving government, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary
(02:53):
of State Anthony Blincoln. Let's go down to Bloomberg News
as David Gara, who is sitting down with the outgoing
chair of the SEC in Washington. David Ordio, Thank you
very much, and welcome to our listeners and viewers worldwide.
I'm here with Chair Gary Gensler in his office in Washington,
d C. Great to speak with you, Great to be
with you, David. Part of it was live on television
and radio, but we kept the conversation going when the
(03:15):
cameras cut away. I asked him to reflect on his
time as the US's top securities regulator and what it's
like to be called out by the past and future
president along with the world's richest man, and what's next
for the SEC. I'm David Gura and This is the
big take from Bloomberg News Today. On the show, an
(03:37):
exit interview with the thirty third Chair of the US
Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, his views on crypto,
on AI, on China, and what advice he has for
his successor. I want to start first just by asking
you how you're feeling here with less than two weeks
left in your term. You happen subject to fair amount
(03:59):
of attacks, some thank you all. How have you processed
all of that?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
You walk into this central square and you debate these
important things for three hundred and thirty million Americans. I've
worked over the years with Hillary Clinton on a number
of campaigns, and I remember Hillary saying once like, if
you're not willing to be attacked, you can't go into
the public square and debate policy. And so I think
(04:26):
it's part of our great democracy. It's a great privilege
to be in a role like this. But what's remarkable
about this role is it oversees the one hundred and
twenty trillion dollar capital market, which touches everything in our economy.
Because you've got to raise money for most of what
we do in our economy, and people save you ask
about the attacks and things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
That's what public policy is about.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You came into this job, you gave a big speech
in which you analogize the crypto world to the wild West.
I guess that makes you the sheriff. So as you
get ready to hang up your spurs, jeez, less of
a wild I've really been laboring the metaphor. But is
it less of a wild West than it was? As
you leave this office.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
My daughters if they ever watched this interview, well, as
we're your spurs, dad, I think that we've done some
good things. Look, I came in. My predecessor, Jake Clayton,
who was in this office, had also tried to address
this new emerging part of finance. Jay was trying to
address it, and he brought eighty enforcement actions in this area.
(05:28):
We've brought in about one hundred in our four years.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It was consistent.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I've been around finance for over four decades, and everything
in the market's trade on a mixture of fundamentals and
sentiment at any given time. I've never seen a field
that's so much wrapped up in sentiment and not so
much about fundamentals. And these ten than fifteen thousand projects
(05:53):
many of them will not survive. They're like venture capital investments.
They're not going to survive. But they're are also a
fair number of small pump and dump schemes and other
things in this And of course we've lived through a
few years where they became notorious, but they're in jail.
(06:14):
The sambank and Freeds and the do Kwans where tens
of billions of dollars were lost by investors.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Settle something for me, because I think when you came into.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Office, a lot of people looked at your immediate background,
having researched a lot of digital assets, worked on them
at MIT, and thought that you would be perhaps a
champion of them. Has there been an evolution in the
way that you approach crypto over that transition from academia
to hear or while you've been here, people think you
are somebody who's adamantly opposed.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
To here's the evolution.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
When you're in academia or when you're not in this job,
you can study something and observe it as I did,
and try to teach students what's the value proposition about
this new technology, what's the value proposition of this new
investment vehicles?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But then when you're in this job.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
This is a chair of a five member commission over
roughly five thousand people. That's a law enforcement agency, and
this is a field rife with challenges and non compliance
with the securities laws. You take an oath of office,
you do what you can to protect the investing public.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
On that note, we saw in this last election cycle
one hundred and thirty five million dollars spent by crypto
companies on races across the country.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Did you notice that very few, if any, actually advertised
on crypto?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
I didn't note that.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Just does that give you concern the role that the
crypto industry is playing not just within these halls, but
across Washington, across the country in those rings.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I just think of every day investors.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I think it's very consequential to every day investors that
we put in place rules that insiders of companies, seniors
executives can no longer just file a plan on a
Monday when they had material non public information and sell
their stock on that same Monday. But we've put in
(08:09):
place rules that they will have to wait ninety days.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
And why ninety.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Days because then they might release that material non public information.
So I think that's what we really focused on and
that every day investors have benefited from that.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Let me pivot to risks.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And you've sounded the alarm about artificial intelligence at FSOC,
you gave a big speech at you a law school,
you did one at the National Press Club.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's something that you're clearly thinking.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I even wrote about it when I was at MITRE
you go four and a half years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
We are facing now four years where one geopolitical consultancy
says we're having AI unbound, that there will be less
regulatory interest in AI.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
What are the consequences of that?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
As you see, it's the financial markets not having anything
close to a robust regulatory regime for AI.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
It's very dramatic advancements. I think it's going to transform
so many parts of our economy in good ways. We
are automating this, and the Industrial Revolution was automating this
and this, and for those that couldn't see, I meant
we're automating our brains and not our biceps, our biceps
(09:19):
and our thighs. And I think it will boost productivity,
but there'll be a lot of disruptions in terms of
the capital markets, in terms of finance. I think about
the challenges of the conflicts if your robo advisor, are
they giving you advice on behalf of the asset manager
(09:41):
or you?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And who are they putting first? And it could be
in some.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Opaque mathematical formula deep inside the algorithm.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Another challenge facing the agency it could see its budget
slashed under the incoming Trump administration, which is promised to
reduce on government agencies across the board.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
That's in a moment.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
SEC chair Gary Gensler has already announced he's leaving his
job at noon on inauguration Day. It's been well established
that President Elect Trump would not have left him in
the job. I wanted to ask Gensler about Trump's plans
for the SEC and other agencies. The ethos, it seems,
of this incoming administration is to cut staff and cut
bureaucracy here in Washington. What would that mean for this
(10:35):
agency if you had a less stout.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I think it would be unfortunate because we're already spread
too thin. We get forty or fifty thousand tips, complaints
and referrals a year a year a year now back
to an earlier subject, I think eighteen percent of those
are from the crypto field, and at any given time,
we only have the staff to maybe investigate some small portions.
(11:01):
So we're constantly trioshing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Has there been an SEC DOGE summit and has anyone
working for that new Elon musk I vet Ramaswami outfit
come to the agency to talk about potential changes or.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I think you.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Know, it might sound familiar to what Tony Blinkoln taught you.
There's one president at a time, there's one commission at
a time. I'm proud of this agency, but that which
folks do after January twentieth take up at that point
in time.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Looking ahead, Have you had a conversation with Paul Atkins,
your presumptive successor here, and if so, what did you
stress to him is most important to think about as
he would take over the High Agency.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Paul and I did catch up.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
You know, he knows this agency, he's worked at this
agency chair and he was a commissioner for six years,
and so I won't say all the things a private conversation,
but Richard Breeden was the first person to hire Paul
and to the agency. Richard was chair under President Bush
(12:09):
number forty one, and I shared with Paul the advice
that Richard gave me coming into this job, and Richard said, remember,
every single day in the job is one day closer
to when you will join the former's club. And you
can take that a number of ways, but I took
that as Richard's way of saying, every day is such
(12:29):
a privilege, use it well, use it on behalf of
the American public. And so that was my main advice
to Paul.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
A sort of big thing question just about financial regulation
and the US's role in the world. You've said, though
the US equity markets are the deepest, most liquid in
the world, we can't take that leadership for granted. At
this moment of transition. There will be some I imagine,
who wonder just about the certainty of regulation in this
country and how the US holds onto that position of
prominence or preeminence in the world.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Are we doing ourselves a disservice?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by having these
kind of radical changes in leadership of regulatory agencies. So
it went from Jake Clayton to you. You had your own
regulatory agenda. Now we'll go, presumably to a Paul Atkins one,
and he'll prioritize certain things push other things to the wayside.
Investors love certainty. Is there an inherent lack of certainty
in the way that we have financial regulation in this country.
(13:24):
That's detrimental.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I think democracies are a very good thing. The American
public gets to speak through their votes as to who
sits and seats of consequence like I sit in. I
think what's really important for regardless of who's in this seat,
is that it can't take for granted they were going
to be number one, and that their capital markets might
(13:49):
be the deepest and liquid now.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But if they get more.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Costly, if they get rickety and unstable in any way,
if they favor certain folks rather than having a really
competitive environment where you have equal and open access to
the capital markets, full access, I should say, and fair access,
(14:17):
then we could give up our mantle. And it relates
to the dollars role in the world. A lot of
people talk about the dollar as a reserve currency. I say,
that's interesting, important, maybe, but it's really about our capital
markets that are forty to forty five percent of the
world's capital markets. Our stock market is sixty trillion dollars
in size, the French stock market, the UK stock market.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Three trillion. Twe to three trillion.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
We have single companies that have market values more than that,
even the Chinese stock markets maybe a twelve thirteen trillion.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
But we can't take it for granted.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Got to keep it good, disclosure, free of fraud, manipulation,
and really have as best you can and competitive all
to all trading. And then markets go up, markets go down,
and you know, people get to decide what risks they
want to take.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Lastly, what's next for you?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Do you have plans for what you'll do come January
twentieth when you leave this job.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I don't have anything do analyx on this, on this program.
It really is a remarkable agency. And I want to
hand it off well to the next team. And I'm
very focused, of course on the staff, the great staff
here over these next ten days as well, and then
(15:40):
hand it.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Over to others that will have the privilege.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
As Richard Breden said that each day is one day
closer to when they're join the former's club.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Sure againstter, Thank you very much, Thank you appreciate it,
Thank you. This is the Big from Bloomberg News. I'm
David Gura. This episode is produced by David Fox and
Jessica Beck. It was mixed and sound designed by Alex
Segura and fact check by Adriana Tapia. Our senior producer
(16:11):
is Naomi Shaven, who also edited this episode with Aaron
Edwards and Meghan Howard. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Our executive producer is the cole Beemster Bore. Sage Bauman
is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you liked this episode,
make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever
you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
We'll be back next week.
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