Bethany McLean Quotes

#1. Privatization of assets that most of us consider public goods - like airports and highways - has a long, often-uncontroversial history.

Bethany McLean

#2. Home ownership was the fig leaf for the rise in subprime lending. But that was really about cash-out refinancings, not buying homes.

Bethany McLean

#3. Proponents of privatization argued that cities and states needed private capital to fund all the upgrades that our decaying infrastructure so desperately needed.

Bethany McLean

#4. Before Enron, I think people were a bit more naive about the way things worked, and I think Enron pulled the curtain back on unsavoury practices that turned out to be a lot more widespread.

Bethany McLean

#5. No city embraced privatization more eagerly than Chicago, where I live.

Bethany McLean

#6. I'm not a big believer in the power of more regulation to fix things. I think it can almost be more dangerous because it provides the illusion that things have been fixed without the substance.

Bethany McLean

#7. Back in those less complicated times, there were lots of industries that operated more or less by rote: the old banker's motto, for instance, was "3-6-3": take money in at 3 percent, lend it out at 6 percent, and be on the golf course by 3 P.M.

Bethany McLean

#8. Going to work every day was like my hair was on fire and all I had to put it out was a hammer.

Bethany McLean

#9. The last and most painful irony is that the two longtime rival armies in the securitization market - the investment banks and the GSEs - would end up magnifying each other's sins rather than keeping each other in check.

Bethany McLean

#10. Building a portfolio around index funds isn't really settling for the average. It's just refusing to believe in magic.

Bethany McLean

#11. People also felt that a great crime had been committed, yet there was not going to be a great punishment.

Bethany McLean

#12. The big banks advise cities about whether privatization is a wise choice. They also control the ability of states and cities to access the market for their financing needs.

Bethany McLean

#13. Google worries - and rightly so - about how hard it is for a big company to come up with the next hot thing.

Bethany McLean

#14. I think synergies are a lot like UFOs: Lots of people claim to have seen them, but few can actually prove they exist.

Bethany McLean

#15. Choices of right or wrong are not presented to you in black and white. If they were, I'm sure most people would choose white.

Bethany McLean

#16. In capital we trust. Capital is our savior, our holy grail, our fountain of youth, or at least health, for banks.

Bethany McLean

#17. McKinsey partners tend to be designers of ditches, not diggers of ditches. When it comes to executing their lofty theories, well, consultants lean toward leaving those messy realities to the companies themselves.

Bethany McLean

#18. The worst story I ever wrote was after the conviction of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. My co-author and I wrote a piece for 'Fortune' saying everything's going to be different now.

Bethany McLean

#19. What's good for the financial industry probably isn't good for you.

Bethany McLean

#20. Fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in isolation, without looking at the big picture, would be short-sighted.

Bethany McLean

#21. Capital isn't this pile of money sitting somewhere; it's an accounting construct.

Bethany McLean

#22. When Warren Buffett invests in a company, he is conferring upon that company something very unique: his credibility.

Bethany McLean