The Mess Obama Inherited

Frontline on PBS “Money, Power, and Wall Street”

Episode 3

This episode focused on how President Obama and his staff dealt with the mess they inherited and how their actions were viewed by peers, the bankers that had started the issues, and by the American people.

Watch Money, Power and Wall Street: Part Three on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

This episode covers a few points:

• The response of the federal government to the economic meltdown during the last days of the Bush administration
• The same response during the first few months of the Obama administration
• The relationship between President Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury
• President Obama’s response to the banking crisis
• The too big to fail regulations and changes that bankers were expecting
• How the big banks felt about President Obama after basically winning the “fight”

There were also some choice quotes:

• Obama campaigned on, “There’s a problem in our economy, my opponent doesn’t see it ,and I can fix it.” -Charles Duhigg, The New York Times
• “He was making sure that the ethics of Wall Street was pure and that we were doing the business we should be doing.” –Robert Wolf, Chairman, UBS Americas
• “They were still learning which keys go to which locks, and how to get around the offices, and they are being asked to provide the plan that will save the world.” –Charles Duhigg, The New York Times
• “Somehow they have survived this disaster of their own making and it is back to business as usual.” –Ron Suskind, author, Confidence Man

Kirk, Michael, dir. "Episode 3." Writ. Michael Kirk, and Mike Wiser. Money, Power and Wall Street. Frontline on PBS: 01 May 2012. Television.