Markopolos interview — Transcript

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1. 0:00we all wished that we had gotten the job
2. 0:02done and that we could have made them
3. 0:04listen but in the end we
4. 0:09failed so do you feel Vindicated At All
5. 0:12by what's
6. 0:14happened I feel more saddened by what's
7. 0:17happened that a lot of people lost
8. 0:19everything this nation lost its
9. 0:24reputation there's not a lot to feel
10. 0:26good about I'd been warning them
11. 0:28repeatedly
12. 0:30for nearly a decade and they were
13. 0:33ignoring me repeatedly for the same
14. 0:35length of
15. 0:37time and knew they had a lot to answer
16. 0:39for they had a budget of 900 million a
17. 0:42year 3500 staffers only two of which
18. 0:45were helping me and 3,498 were not
19. 0:47helping me and I knew that they were a
20. 0:50captive regulator in bed with the
21. 0:53industry that they were failing to
22. 0:56regulate and that they were incompetent
23. 0:58to boot has it has it been odd uh to
24. 1:02have people calling you a hero
25. 1:04yes very odd how is how is the how do
26. 1:08you deal with something like that or how
27. 1:09do you feel about
28. 1:12that well I was trained as a
29. 1:16soldier so I always Associated heroism
30. 1:19with acts bravery on the
31. 1:22battlefield and this was a different
32. 1:27type of Bravery I guess it was
33. 1:31and there's a fine line between bravery
34. 1:33and
35. 1:34foolishness and I think that my team and
36. 1:37I we probably cross that line on more
37. 1:39than one occasion uh we probably took
38. 1:42some risks that
39. 1:43were above and beyond the
40. 1:46call and we had had a happy ending for
41. 1:49us it could have gone the other
42. 1:52way we all have
43. 1:55families and maybe we kept
44. 1:58going too long mhm and
45. 2:01uh maybe we should have thought more
46. 2:03about what we were
47. 2:05doing so you're not sure you should have
48. 2:08pursued it so
49. 2:11hard it was we saw him as such a huge
50. 2:15threat and we felt that we had to keep
51. 2:18going that if the government won't
52. 2:22act that's not an excuse for good
53. 2:25citizens to sit idly by and not do
54. 2:29anything thing mhm because otherwise the
55. 2:31nation falls apart
56. 2:33mhm and if not us then who MH cuz there
57. 2:36was no one back stopping us we were the
58. 2:37last line of defense the victims of it
59. 2:40have have you been contacted by any
60. 2:41victims or anything like that how how
61. 2:43was that
62. 2:45been have you been able to tell them
63. 2:47anything that I met somebody last week
64. 2:50whose father died from
65. 2:51this he lost
66. 2:56everything and I felt really bad and he
67. 2:58said don't worry you did everything you
68. 3:00could and nothing you could have done
69. 3:02would have saved my dad cuz my dad
70. 3:04started investing with mt off in the
71. 3:0570s and it was too late for him he was
72. 3:08an accountant he had put a lot of his
73. 3:11clients into Matt off he' put most of
74. 3:13our inheritance into Matt off it's all
75. 3:16gone and that's what killed him he
76. 3:18couldn't live with it he didn't commit
77. 3:20suicide he just no he just uh died of a
78. 3:23broken heart if you will it wore him out
79. 3:26yeah just took him took him out mhm and
80. 3:28I know it's kind of silly question but I
81. 3:30mean did you ever think there would be a
82. 3:31movie about
83. 3:36you of course
84. 3:39not no but how weird is that
85. 3:44though yeah took months to get used to
86. 3:47those ideas and
87. 3:50uh and at first I didn't want to do
88. 3:52anywhere near
89. 3:53it my feeling is I make a lot more from
90. 3:55my cases than I do from books and movies
91. 4:00but I realized it's for the history
92. 4:01books so I do
93. 4:04it
94. 4:06um it's
95. 4:08something that was going to be done
96. 4:11anyway with or without my team and if we
97. 4:14wanted to have any chance on shaping the
98. 4:16outcome and the quality of whatever book
99. 4:20and movie was produced then we really
100. 4:22needed to um take a proactive
101. 4:26stance and cooperate with a publish
102. 4:29house and with a movie
103. 4:31producer otherwise it was going to
104. 4:34be the same old same old that Hollywood
105. 4:36is known for and so reluctantly we're
106. 4:42doing the book and the movie I had a
107. 4:44really good life before mov turned
108. 4:46himself in if I could go back to that I
109. 4:49would