the u.s. economy, which used to be the envy of the world is in the most serious trouble since the great depression. inflation is rising, standard of living is declining. tremendous inflation and not much growth. the country was not in a great depression but the united states is in the dumps. wall street was cold, gray, wet, and miserable. there was no comfort to be found outside for investors there was not much inside. the tickers carried almost nothing but bad news. we would have a terrible decade for investing. people were skeptical of the stock market. it was a sleepy wall street. most economists expect a serious recession with at least 2 million more americans losing their jobs. regret to say we are in the worst economic mess since the great depression. from the first moment of his presidency, president reagan let him know that his top priority is the nation s economy. i put a freeze on pending regulations of the task force under vice president bush to revie
The notorious fraudster has been arrested in Los Angeles accused of scamming at least a dozen neighbors and friends out of tens of thousands of dollars
those carry very high interest rates and they are called junk bonds. you may not have heard of michael milken of the investment banking firm of drexel burnham lambert incorporated, but this wall street whiz is said to be the most powerful financier in america. he brought respectability to low rated junk bonds and use the money to finance corporate raids and takeovers. without him, t boone pickens couldn t have rated petroleum. that was the first time i saw milken. he said, if you want to take over, it will cost you $13 billion. and i go i get it. and he said, i can get that. he is the guy pickens goes to them heard of him. he doesn t care about publicity. all he cares about is making money doing deals, and having power. he was this shadowy howard hughes figure that those of us in the press never saw.
there are new details tonight about what may be the largest swindle in wall street history, an alleged $50 billion ponzi scheme by former nasdaq chairman bernard madoff. what would you say to them? when you have a collapse on wall street, i always think of it as the water going out of a lake or something. and suddenly you can see the roots of those trees. you could see all the ugly stuff that gets caught in them, including dead bodies. that s how i feel, that the water went down so much, and everybody was like, that s bernie madoff down there. a wall street whiz with a golden reputation, bernie madoff earned trust from many of his clients because he made them money, lots of it, or so they thought. bernie madoff was a modern day dr. jekyll and mr. hyde. he had a legitimate life that was highly successful and he had a darker secret that fed his