Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - The White House, Wall Street, and the SEC with Diana Henriques

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Award-winning journalist and author, Diana Henriques, joins Anthony this week to discuss her latest book,Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR's Fight to Regulate American Capitalism.  What does capitalism owe to the common good? Diana raises this urgent question with Anthony, discussing the steps President Franklin D. Roosevelt took to regulate Wall Street during the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression, and the role the New Deal still plays in today’s markets. They then move on to discuss Diana’s definitive book on Bernie Madoff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees can grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci and this is Open Book, where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe,

wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. My guest today, Diana Henriquez, wrote one of the best books I have read over the past year. An account of Wall Street in the time of its greatest crisis alongside a real-life political battle. It is a vital, timely story of Wall Street versus the White House when

Americans knew what needed to be done and supported the leaders who could do it. Okay, so joining us now is Diana Henriquez, who is an incredible writer. She's an award-winning journalist. She's a best-selling author. She's out with a book this past year called Taming the street. I've got my copy right here, Diana, the old guard, the new deal, and FDR's fight to regulate American capitalism. I'm a huge FDR fan, and so I was gravitated to your book, but also I'm a huge Diana Enrique's fan. I've read just about every one of your books. And so congratulations on the book when Bloomberg asked me, what was my favorite book last year? I said it was yours. And so I appreciate you. So it's a big honor for you to be here,

for me, at least. I'm a big fan. Tell us what got you into the world of Wall Street before we get into the book. Well, you know, I can actually almost remember this kind of epiphany moment I had. I was covering state government in New Jersey, and there was a crisis brewing in the New York state budget. And the state legislature in New York was absolutely adamantly opposed to what the governor had been recommending in terms of budget cut. And there was an announcement that Moody's rating service had put New York state bonds on negative credit watch. And within hours, the legislature capitulated. And I said, whoa, who is this that's more powerful than the politics of Albany, more powerful than the politics in New York State?

And so I got into Wall Street, literally by way of the municipal bond market, as a financing mechanism for local governments and the power that the marketplace had to overrule political priorities. I mean, nobody wanted the budget cuts in Albany. There were strong constituencies in favor of maintaining them, but maintaining the state's credit rating was so critically important that basically the bond market was telling New York, here's what's going to happen. That's what pulled me in from covering government, covering, which I always expected to spend my life covering into covering first the municipal bond market. And then, you know, once you've covered a market and you love markets, you love markets. So that's, yeah, amen.

And I get that because markets are everything that we need to know about human. emotion. So if you're a student of human behavior, the markets provide endless fascination. In real time, second by second. There's no question. The greed, the fear, the delusion, the fabrication, which you write about and Wizard of Lies. I missed that one, actually, Bernie Madoff. You know, I got caught up in the FDX thing, of course. I saw that. I was offered to invest in Bernie Madoff several times. I honestly just didn't understand it. And so, by the way, I thought he was a wizard, Diana. I'm not one of those guys a revised history and pretend that I knew that he was a fraud. I did not know that he was a fraud. I just thought, okay, this is an elder state that has some secret sauce.

One of the best, one of the most successful con artists of history, really. And I've studied all of them. But he had a gift for inspiring trust and disarming everyone's skepticism alarms. I mean, you know, you know yourself, Anthony, retired CEOs of Merrill Lynch, you know, top people on Wall Street, Wall Street economists, people who were brilliant people, fell for Bernie Madoff. Yeah, there's no question. He had a gift for this. And listen, there was a calmness to him, actually. We could talk about that, but that was what I think got people. It was just this assuredness. Meantime, he was peddling very fast to keep the whole game going. I want to get to your book. The book is a brilliant exposition on what needs to happen because of our human emotions. Okay,

we have fear and greed, but we also have charlatanism, and we have people that will take advantage of other people. And so how do you prevent that? And the book is loaded with great stories. But let's go back to the 1920s where we had a world of banksterism. We had a world of bootlegging. Of course, we took America off the sauce, but we never really were off the sauce. All we did was really foster and create organized crime. But we had a situation in America where the markets were being heavily manipulated, and capitalism, which I think we both agree, based on reading your book, we both agree in the spirit of capitalism and the need for capitalism, but we also understand that there has to be some regulation. There needs to be a referee because of the way human

beings act with each other. So take us into the story. Well, the 20s have had a great press agent over the years. You know, the image of the 1920s, roaring prosperity, great fashions, wonderful car, one long, decade-long party for America is so wrong. I mean, it is just so distorted, I don't know, by Hollywood, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who knows. But in reality, the 20s were the high watermark, the apotheosis of unregulated capitalism. And it had been building over decades and decades. Teddy Roosevelt, another of the Roosevelt clan, had made some inroads into restraining monopolies, the giant trusts that were coming to dominate the economy. But subsequent presidencies had backed away from that.

And by the end of World War I, during which American companies had suffered under some wartime restrictions, by the end of World War I, they were ready to be done with government regulation, just no more. And unleashed a decade of absolutely remarkable corporate misbehavior. the most admired, respected business people in the country, the household name corporations, were engaged in illegal union busting, they were engaged in price fixing, they were engaged as you said, it's stock market manipulations at a rampant daily level. They owned the government, you know, there were actually, there was rumored in Pennsylvania to have been price lists

for what it cost to buy a U.S. senator. But, you know, they controlled all of the levers of power and they weren't letting anything go. And for the vast majority of the rest of the country, the 20s were a time of really desperate struggles. The farm belt never recovered from the gluts that were created by overproduction in World War I. The working class in textiles, in lumber, in mining, in livestock was struggling just to keep their head above water. And by the time of the crash in 1929, which is where I bring the curtain up on my efforts. FDR story. We had a nation that was absolutely locked in the grip of the most powerful plutocratic forces that the country had ever seen. We'd really never seen such a degree of corporate power.

And understandably, when the crash occurred, the reaction of a lot of people, fairly or not, and historians can argue about that, was that Wall Street was largely responsible, not just for the crash, but for the ghastly depression that followed. Now, the levers by which the crash created the depression are disputed. My description of it, as you saw, was that it was a prelude to the Great Depression. One thing we know it did do is have a massive, immediate impact on spending by the 1%. And the economy in the 1920s had become so lopsided, so tilted towards the high-end earner, that when they start tightening their belts, it rippled back down through the rest of the economy. Yeah, no, it's fascinating.

You know, and when we talk about the butterfly effect, I had a gentleman on talking about that. Had, you know, and I think you know about Lords of Finance, or maybe you read the book, Leopouin's book, had Benjamin Strong not gotten sick and died, you know, he may have liquefied those markets as the Federal Reserve Chairman. He had a much better understanding of what needed to get done during a systemic panic like that. But I mean, this is life. The difference that one person can make, that's a wonderful example of that. I loved Ahmed's book. I also loved Ahmed because he reviewed Wizard of Lies very favorably, which was great. But the parallels with today, both in the Lords of Finance and now are remarkable. A reverse parallel with the Federal Reserve. We've seen a Federal Reserve system really from the days of Paul Volker come into a deep maturity in terms of

managing interest rates and money and the money supply. The fact that we've managed to navigate the post-pandemic economy as successfully as we have is evidence of that. Where we haven't made that kind of progress, though, is in this world of regulation. So what I wanted to do with taming the street to answer your question was to, first of all, show people what it was like before. I talked to so many younger investors who never knew that there was ever a world without an SEC. that we ever operated capitalism without any regulation. So I wanted to show people what this deregulatory paradise that, you know, free market zealots envisioned actually worked like, how it dealt with individual investors like you and me.

Well, not like you. You're much smarter than most investors, but just individual investors got chewed up and spit out by that system. So I wanted to show them that. And then I wanted to show them what it took to change it. that it wasn't an act of nature that markets worked this way. Human beings, just like Benjamin Strong, human beings could step in and change it. It wasn't easy. And as I described in taming the street, there were some bitter battles, and there were times

when FDR's back was to the wall and his political capital was just about exhausted in trying to get the public utility holding company act passed, for example. if there hadn't been a very timely scandal in the utility industry, that bill probably wouldn't have passed. But if we see that you can change things, my hope is that we will look at where we are today, see what needs to be done and get it done. Well, if America had three fathers, George Washington being the first one, and Abraham Lincoln being the second in terms of preserving the union, the father of the American century was FDR. He understood that he needed to fortify the democracy and capital. capitalism by providing a safety net for people and to make people have a feeling of aspiration, at least that they had some place to start with.

And I've always said this to my conservative friends. I'm not for equal outcomes. I want there to be Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, but I am for equal opportunity. And we don't pick who we're born to, and therefore we're a rich enough society where we can provide a package of services to people to help them get their start in life. Roosevelt understood that. He was written about it in his time, and H.W. Brands uses this as a very great biography called a traitor to his class, but he was actually a savior to his class. Well put. If you really understand what he was

trying to do, he recognized with the very famous racist and anti-Semite, Henry Ford recognized, which if you pay the people, and Ford said this, if I pay them enough money to buy the product that they're purchasing, and I put them in a single family home with a good public school education, they You won't come after my dearborn Michigan mansion while I'm eating caviar with a pitchfork and a tiki twitch. So FDR got this. He also got the fact that if you wanted to have a promotion of capitalism, and you and I both know, and I've read your work, so I know you believe this, that Wall Street is the engine with that. Yeah, it's the engine. It is the circulatory system of capitalism.

It's the heartbeat of capitalism. And it provides the money to the great ideas and the innovations and to the Amazons of its day or the Googles or the Google's or the AIs of today, but you need to have people feel that they're being treated fairly. And I think, you know, when I read your book and I think about your book, the hallmark for me is transparency. You take risk, but we have to explain to you what the risks are, and there needs to be some semblance of transparency. So take us to the origin of this thing that we now know is the Securities Exchange Commission. I'm so glad you touched on the transparency requirement, because that was really the regulatory revolution that the FDR approved, but that the young

securities lawyers that he brought into the administration had actually come up with. Prior to the New Deal, the idea fostered by conservatives who opposed regulation was that regulation was some bureaucrat telling you what to do. You can't buy this. You have to buy that. You can't invest in this. You should invest in that because they thought that was a limitation. on freedom. It was a limitation on capitalism. That was offensive to them. FDR gave them a new

definition, just as you pointed out, he said, okay, we're not going to tell you you can't buy that or you can't have to buy this. We're just going to force whoever wants your money to tell you what they're going to do with it, honestly, you know, comprehensively and completely. And then we're going to let you decide. You know, if they tell you, look, I'm going to take all your money, go to Brazil, sit on a beach for a year, see if I can think of an idea, for a best-selling novel, sell it, and I'll pay you back out of the proceeds. If you put that under prospectus and someone is stupid enough to give you their money, the American regulatory system is fine with that.

That was a revolution, Anthony. The notion that people could come and say, I'm going to do this crazy something with your money, and you could say, fine, and no government would step in and stop you. Now, in our unregulated corners of the marketplace, we're falling way short of that ideal. But the idea in a regulated marketplace was, tell people what you're doing. Show people the work. Show people the price movements. You mentioned manipulation before, and I don't think modern readers have any idea of the degree of market manipulation that was routine. New York stock exchange on down, and every big city in those days had a stock exchange,

and corporations sometimes manipulated their own stocks. Banks were routinely found to manipulate stocks. And it was an open secret. It's fascinating to go back into the old archives of the Wall Street Journal and Barron's, the financial pages of the daily newspapers and see their stock market columnist commenting on the fact that a pool of investors is getting organized to manipulate the price of stock XYZ. It was an open secret. It was patently illegal. It violated the rules of the New York Stock Exchange to do it. But nobody ever prosecuted anybody for it. Nobody ever disrespected anybody for it. Nobody ever disciplined anybody for it. So it just became a way of life.

And manipulation was the primary target of the SEC. Was to force the marketplaces where capitalism lived and breathed to force them to show their work to be transparent in the trading that they conducted. So transparency, sunlight, full disclosure was the Roosevelt Revolution. It was a different way of. regulating capitalism. And it has proved to be the, to my mind, only effective way. I mean, our, it's the best of class. It's the best of class way. It's not perfect. And the SEC can miss things. You know, you write about that with Madoff. They missed that. They went and examined him a few times. He thought the gig was up in 05. He lasted to low eight. But let's think we have a

contradictory character in your book that David Nassau wrote a biography about, which I encourage people to read Joseph Kennedy. What an interesting man, right? In some ways, he was a nefarious actor. He understood these systems better than anybody. FDR felt he needed him to form a coalition. He wanted the Irish American help in his voting block. In some ways, he despised Joseph P. Kennedy. Kennedy turns out to be an unbelievable public servant as the SEC first commissioner. He goes on to become less valuable to FDR, as we both know, as an ambassador. So let's talk about Mr. Kennedy, Jack Kennedy's father, Joe. What was his skill set? What did he bring to the commission? What did he add? And what were the, what was the relationship like with Franklin

Roosevelt? I agree with you that it was one of the most intriguing relationships of the book and of that period of history. One thing that it's important to know about Joe Kennedy is what drove him in both his best work, which was at the SEC, it was a masterpiece of public service, and in his worst work, which was arguably as ambassador to Britain in the lead up to World War II, was personal interest. He signed on with Roosevelt. He probably voted for Hoover in 1928, that there's conflicting historical evidence. But he signed on with Roosevelt very early, early 1930, in fact, and started raising money for him. He visited Roosevelt in Albany and came back and told his wife Rose, you know, I think I just met the next president of the United States. He saw in Roosevelt a politician who

could do the hard work of saving capitalism from the rising outrage and anger that the depression was bringing to bear on the plutocrats like him. And so there's a quote I use in the book, which you may remember, where he said, it was a time when I would have happily given half of what I owned to be able to enjoy the other half under law and safety. He was very worried about it. Remember, he moved his family to work. Westchester County, I think the Bronxville at that period of time. He was very worried about it.

Very worried about a social unrest, about a communist takeover, a socialist takeover. Diana, am I surprising you with my nerdy geekiness? I'm a little bit, right? I am a little bit. I'm a loving it. You don't realize that I'm like a nerdy geek, right? They don't realize it. But then, you know, let's keep going. Okay, so, but he comes down with some great ideas for the commission, right? Yes. So it just happened that in that moment of history, Joe Kennedy's personal personal priorities were a perfect overlay for FDR's priorities. He needed someone who could disarm Wall Street's attacks. Now, Wall Street didn't trust Kennedy either.

He'd always been an outsider. He'd always been a lone wolf. Never played well with others. But what could they say to the public's eye, Joe Kennedy was as Wall Street as you get. He had speculated through the 20s. He played the games that the SEC was set up to stamp out. He had manipulated markets. He had run pools. He had done all of those sins. And so to the public,

he was absolutely Wall Street, even though Wall Street didn't trust him. But they had to keep their hands off because of who he was. So he was a brilliant choice. He took it on, I think. As you know from the book, he wanted a much higher position in Roosevelt's cabinet and thought he deserved one. He thought he should be secretary to treasury at least. And Roosevelt had no intention of putting such a bossy, opinionated, strong-minded person in his cabinet. He was going to run his cabinet. There was nobody else in his cabinet as strong as FDR. He was going to run the Treasury.

The Commerce Department. He thought he was going to run the Supreme Court. Yes, he did. Got himself a little bit of trouble with that. Ultimately, he did. By the end of his 12 years in office, he had shaped the Supreme Court for decades ago. He figured out he had to play with inside the rules to do it. But he was, you know, listen, I have endless amount of fascination with Roosevelt because he was the man.

He was the person that we needed at that time in our country. And so he brings in Kennedy. He brings in Kennedy. They have a contentious friendship. They were definitely a friendship. I think that we shouldn't make too much of, I think he had that kind of bad boy charm that FDR always liked. He and William O. Douglas, both of them, were kind of these bad boy kids, young. and brash, and FDR was always loved that kind of figure.

But when he lured Kennedy to run the SEC, basically he saw that this was where he could give Kennedy carte blanche, which was what Kennedy had to have. He couldn't give him carte blanche at the Treasury or at the State of the, but he could give him carte blanche at the SEC and say, all it is is words on paper right now, Joe. If it's ever going to be a real thing, it's going to be because you, you brought it into being. And what followed in the next 400 plus days was, as I said, it's just a masterpiece of public service. He finagled the Budget Bureau. He called back money from the Federal Trade Commission for doing work that he was now doing. He hired an extraordinary

core of people. He marshaled congressional support across the board. He established, and this would surprise many people, he established unimpeachable standards of ethics for the agency. He put all his own wealth into a private trust the day he took that oath of office and told the portfolio manager, not a single change in my portfolio while I'm in office, period, so that he was operating completely clear of any personal financial considerations. So he surprised Wall Street. I think he surprised FDR to some degree. He probably even surprised himself with how well he did in that job. But he remained a behind-the-scenes ally. of the SEC for most of the rest of his life. He always had their back when they were under attack.

So it's a maybe a forgotten moment in the career of a very complex man and the founder of a political dynasty, not just Jack Kennedy as president, of course, but Ted Kennedy, Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and now many congressmen who are grandchildren and great grandchildren of Joe Kennedy. You know, very well said. And what draws me to your book and to your writing is that, it's a teaching guide for today's current dilemmas. You know, your book, Wizard of Lies, here's a manual, avoid fraud. A first-class catastrophe. This is how confluence of events led to a 22.8% one-day decline in the stock market. But this book is about actually the future. You're writing

about the past, but you're really giving us a manual for the future. So if you had a few moments to guide the SEC or guide Wall Street, what would be some of the things that you would say for the future of Wall Street and the SEC? Well, the first thing I would say is reimagine the regulatory frontier, reimagined the regulatory borders. We have by default allowed far, too much acreage in the world of finance to fall outside the regulatory reach of the federal government, whether it's private equity, whether it's cryptocurrency, whatever it is. If retail investors are engaged in it as an asset class, the regulators must be there. It's just that simple. Now, so that would be, that would be the first thing I would say to them. The second thing I would say to them, and I'd say it

in the immediate next breath, is we need to move towards a unitary regulator. Our regulatory system is so fragmented now after decades and decades and decades of adding on and sticking on and, you know, hang in another little bell or whistle here or there. We've got 50 state securities regulators and bank regulators. We've got more than a half a dozen important federal regulators, and many of them competing on each other's surf. One of the reasons we've been so slow to develop a sensible, modern regulatory regime for cryptocurrency, which I know is something that you've talked and thought a lot about. One of the reasons we've been so slow is simple regulatory competition between the CFTC and the SEC. That's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. If I could ignore all the political realities that would be

involved, I would say we need a unitary regulator. We need a ministry of finance that regulates the world of finance wherever it is. So that would be the second thing I would say. On a more practical level, recognizing the polarized political situation, the near paralysis in Congress, at a more practical level, I would say something that Joe Biden could do tomorrow that would influence the way the regulatory agencies, all of them were. would be to elevate them in his own personal agenda. One of the keystones of FDR's architecture was that the people he put on the commission were incredibly formidable figures.

And whoever was the chairman had walk-in privileges at the Oval Office. He knew what they were doing. He knew what problems they were facing. He knew what attacks they were under. And he came to their defense. He was firmly in their corner and Wall Street knew it. Wall Street knew that if they attacked Bill Douglas as the third chairman of the SEC, Roosevelt had his back and was going to defend him.

It's been decades since we've had that kind of... He enjoyed their scorn. Do you remember that famous speech where he said he enjoyed their scoring? Right, right. So, I mean, when was the last time a president and an SEC chairman actually had the kind of relationships that I write about in taming the street? Yeah, it's very well, very well said. I think that the issue, of course, is that we need, you know, we're in the entertainment business now in politics.

You know, it's no longer a hiring process. And so we're hiring people that have probably don't have the depth or the curiosity for these things. But that's neither here nor there. I'm in overtime with you. I promised you 30 minutes, but I'm in overtime. I apologize for that. But I've got to get to my five words. So I ask every author that comes on my show.

I read their books. And then I think of five words. And then I would like the author to, you know, react to it. It could be a sentence or a word or even a paragraph. Let's start with the word made off. Trust betrayed. No one can deceive you more easily than someone that you trust completely. And that was the made-off lesson. Beware of those you trust. Okay, I'm going to say the word fidelity. I'm thinking of the company when I say the word fidelity. Of course. Innovation. The American Mutual Fund was one of the genius inventions of 20th century.

I mean, it gave the average investor diversification, professional management, and liquidity, which the average investor in the 1920s could not possibly have had because they didn't own enough money. You give them a lot of credit, which they deserve for the modern financial services era, because without fidelity, we probably don't have this explosion of products and then a result of which all of this innovation comes from the capital flowing in. into these products. And so it's fascinating. And also it's worth pointing out that Ms. Abigail Johnson, who was at Harvard Business School when I was there at law school, she's a big mover. She's more quiet than some of us, but she's a big mover into the crypto space in Bitcoin. I house my Bitcoin holdings at fidelity. And so she's one of the first people to see that. So another,

she's still in there. Generational innovation, Diana. Generational innovation. Okay, capitalism. The word capitalism. A two-edged sword. A two-edge sword. It can be the best of times. It can be the worst of times. What matters is how it's harnessed. It's a wild horse galloping over your body. Or it's the engine that can carry you further, faster than you ever dreamed. I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've read your books, but I'll say regulated capitalism is generally a force for good. Is that fair to say? I agree. Okay. Okay. Let's, these are three letters, FDR. Well, you said it best, you're the right man at the right time. He was precisely who we needed to shape the America that had to survive the 20th century. I mean, it is hard to imagine. The alternative, of course, would have been Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover had no interest at all in the dictatorships of Europe, had no interest in challenging Hitler, had no interest in fighting any of those battles. So what would the 20th century have been if Hoover had won in 1932? So he was the essential 20th century father. He was the father of the 20th century America and put us on the path that led us to global greatness. He was also, though, every American's best friend.

I mean, I tell the story at the end of the book when he died. One of his close New Deal allies, a brain truster, Adolf Burley, was in the Brazilian capital as an ambassador for us at the time. And he noticed average peasants on the streets in Brazil weeping at FDR's death. They felt that he was the only president that had ever cared about them, about the, the the ordinary people of America. When Alfred Kroc was covering the campaign in 1936, he was struck, and of course, all the plutocrats thought Roosevelt was going to lose in 36, the historically.

But Kroc noticed that as they traveled around the country, people would line up in the hot sun in the Midwest for hours just to get a glimpse of FDR's train going by because he had touched their lives, saved their farm, or found them a job, or helped them with, you know, irrigate their acreage. So yes, he was the force that led us into the America of the 20th century, but he did so by linking hands with every ordinary American and bringing them along too. So he wasn't the strong man that we that we dream of. He was a truly personal leader who identified with individual Americans and their and their strivings and their goals. And that's a very unusual mix. If you look at our presidential history, a president that is so identified with the ordinary American, the little guy, it was his divine gift, actually.

Well, what it made was so fascinating. They didn't want him to be one of them because he wasn't. He was an aristocrat, but they related to him because they felt that he was on their side. He was championing their cause. He was using their power. He was using the power of his patrician upbringing. in their behalf. If you enjoy the relationship or understanding the relationship between Joseph Kennedy

and FDR, there's a great book out called Watching Darkness Fall. It's written by a former U.S. ambassador, David McKean, watching Darkness Fall, FDR, his ambassadors, and the rise of Adolf Hitler. And what's fascinating about this book is the relationship that FDR has with Joe Kennedy. Obviously, he doesn't think Joe Kennedy's on the right track as it relates to Adolf Hitler. But he says something in this book, which is fascinating. And it's a quote from Isaiah Berlin. And what Isaiah Berlin says about FDR, I think, will resonate forever, frankly.

And the exact quote I'm getting it. Roosevelt believed in his own ability so long as he was at the controls to stem this terrible tide. He had all the character and energy and skill of the dictator. and he was on our side. He was a believer in democracy, but he could marshal the charisma, he could marshal the energy and the determination. That's a wonderful.

And he understood it. A wonderful insight. That's a quote from Isaiah Berlin. My last word, and I'm sorry I have you in OT, but my last word is Wall Street. The two words, Wall Street. In need of a watchdog. What made Wall Street so attractive

to the denizens of the 1920s was it was a club. It was a club that, Everybody wanted to join, but they decided who got in and who didn't. And it had all of the nefarious flaws and weaknesses of a private club. And it was the triumph of the FDR era to change Wall Street from a private club into an engine through which ordinary Americans could participate in capitalism and save for the life that they dreamed of having. So it, again, could be the best of times in the words. of times, but it is an engine in need of a steering wheel, in need of a governor, a regulator, a set of brakes. Amen. Well, the only problem with finishing one of your books, Diana, it takes

a while to get to the next one, because I'm sure you're got to go work on that. But I'm very grateful to you. This is a wonderful contribution to history of Wall Street and its need for regulation, but it's a beautiful guidebook for the future, taming the street, the old guard, the New Deal, and FDR's fight to regulate American capitalism. Thank you so much for joining the show today. Really grateful to have you. Thank you so much for having me and for being such a fan. It warms my heart. Well, Taming the Street is one of the best books of the year from a business perspective and from a historical perspective as the SEC is now considering things like Web3, Bitcoin, digital assets, digital properties, etc. it is a very telling story about how we regulated the past and we did it so successfully. It was a combination of the private sector working with the government and people trying to get to the

right conclusions. The book reads like a thriller because there's always intrigue in human life as people are battling it out from a political and regulatory perspective. But what I found deeply comforting about the book is that it was in general well-thought-out strategy and a well-thought-out regulatory rubric without a lot of politics. I'm just wondering if we could go back to a time where our regulatory policy was more about right or wrong as opposed to left-leaning policy or right-leaning policy. Financial reform is a big deal and it could perhaps impact the upcoming election. Just remember, there are 70 or so million people in the United States that own a piece of a Bitcoin or some other form of digital currency. A politician who's why

enough to support positive legislation in that area could move the needle in a very close election. It'll be very interesting and very suspenseful to see what happens. But I would encourage you to read Diana's book if you want a manual in terms of understanding the right approach to regulating the future. No, it's your favorite sibling. Where are you? All right. Listen to me.

I got you back on the air. You want to come back on the podcast or no? No, why not? All right, all right, you ready? I'm ready. All right, so, Mom, my guest today was a woman named Diana Henrique, she wrote a terrific book about Wall Street and during the stock market crash. Did Pop ever talk to you about the stock market crash in 1929?

Yes, he did. Okay, so what did Pop say about the stock market crash, your father? What do you say? Well, many, many people, and they had breadlines to get butter and food. And he told me that he was very proud of himself because we never were on the breadline and that he gave a lot of people money so that they could survive and eat. That's what you tell me. Okay.

But you were born in 1937, so you missed the crash, right? I missed the crash, but my brothers were born during that year. Okay. And so he was able to figure it out for the family, right? Absolutely. He had very aggressive personality. He owned many properties in Fort Worth. Washington, and I will give you a list. First, he had a shoe shine business in the railroad

station. When they came out of the ship, they would either go to the Gulf when he was 20th Avenue that still exists during the Depression. And he, and it was in the 40, everything. He did everything right. And then, well, he was a very aggressive, very, very aggressive. And as a result, I had everything on my life as a child. All right. All right, well, good. All right. So, let me ask you this, though. How do you feel about greed? Do you think people are greedy? You are not greedy at all. I forget about me for a second. And you have money and you're not greedy. It depends on the personality and the upbringing of the

person. Do I think people are generally greedy? Yeah, there would be less people looking for food today, but we are overpopulated because of the immigrants that have come in this country. There's just too many of them. Okay. All right. And the people feel anxiety about that because it lowers the wages and it makes people anxious, right? I mean, we know that. I mean, because we grew up in a blue-collar neighbor. All right, all right, let me ask you this, Ma. Why?

Do you think that the government does a good job of being a watchdog on Wall Street and stock market investing? I don't understand that so much. All right. So what I mean is that, like, the forces of greed, we have the government tries to step in to protect people from getting ripped off in the investment community. Do you think they do a good job of that or you don't think so? I think, I think, I mean, it depends on the people that are doing it. I mean, I've done being honest and handling life on Wall Street the right way. Okay. Well, that's nice of you to say, Ma. I don't, I would never rip, but I would never rip anybody off. I mean, you, you know, you raise me right. I'm

not going to do anything like that, God forbid. But I'm just asking you, I mean, what do you? I mean, what your opinion of Wall Street. Forget about me working on Wall Street. What is your opinion on Wall Street? I think it's fascinating. Okay. Do you think that... And your new book, because you have read all your life many, many books, and there's a lot of quotes that you're saying, including Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, who he had Az, or made him who he is, and this and that. I find it fascinating Wall Street by listening to you and David. Mm-hmm. All right, just checking. And I think that. You're brilliant.

All right, ma. I didn't call you to tell me that I'm brilliant, ma. But you are. You're brilliant. And you're honest and you're brilliant. Okay, ma. And you're fascinating because you're like that. All right.

I love you, ma. Love you, baby. All right, bye. Bye. Love you. I am Anthony Scaramucci and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever

you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. You can also text me at Plus 1, 917, 909-29-996. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week.