Martin O'Malley Quotes

The very first time I got to drive by myself, I took a bunch of my friends to school and was caught by a motorcycle cop going 90 miles an hour on a back street.

Money never seems to be interested in strengthening regulatory agencies, for example, but always in subverting them, in making them miss the danger signs in coal mines and in derivatives trading and in deep-sea oil wells.

I'm not saying I do evil things. I'm just saying if a cop stops me when I'm speeding, sometimes - not all the time - I might get out of that ticket. Let's just say I don't have any points on my licence in Ireland, and I drive relatively quickly.

It is a hugely embarrassing situation to find myself in, I'm a professional driver and to be caught speeding and to have my licence taken away for speeding, it would have an effect on my reputation.

Speeding obviously is illegal. I know that's not what you're supposed to do.

Too few people in my old field of financial services were ever brought to book for their part in the 2008 crash.

Not one Wall Street executive has been charged with crimes since the 2008 financial crash.

If we want corporations to act differently, we have to force them to do so through laws that are fully enforced and through penalties higher than the economic benefits of thwarting the laws.

I would ask: Given the nature of free-market capitalism - where the rule is to rise to the top at all costs - is it possible to have a financial industry hero? And by the way, this is not a pop-culture trend we're talking about. There aren't many financial heroes in literature, theater or cinema.

Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.

I wasn't driving down the wrong side of the street, smoking marijuana, waving my gun out the window.

The ethos on Wall Street has not changed, and that's not going to come from the corner office. That's going to come, for better or worse, from Washington, and the whole idea of greed is still good, that is still pervasive.

I think that the S.E.C. has been pretty feckless when it comes to reigning in reckless behavior on Wall Street.

I do like to drive fast and I have gotten pulled over in the past. I use my skills to get out of tickets.

Though many corporations honor commitments to reduce dangerous pollution, some cut corners and cheat. The marketplace doesn't always have mechanisms to correct bad actors.

I'm not anti-Wall Street - I'm anti-distortions to free markets.

When the SEC needs to be deterring corporate wrongdoing, the 'penalty pilot' program sends the wrong message.

It's the FSA and its plethora of EU bodies that's failed.

Regulators all meet with Goldman Sachs executives and employees day after day after day. They don't see the people who get tricked, the people who get cheated, the people who get fooled by the products that Goldman turns out.

Early 2000s, we get Enron, which tells us the books are dirty. And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric.

If large financial institutions can break the law and accumulate million in profits - and, if they get caught, settle by paying out of those profits - they do not have much incentive to follow the law.

Bill Janklow speeds when he drives. Shouldn’t, but he does.

The Commission concludes that the banking supervisors failed to adequately and proactively identify and police the weaknesses of the banks and thrifts or their poor corporate governance and risk management, often maintaining satisfactory ratings on institutions until just before their collapse. This failure was caused by many factors, including beliefs that regulation was unduly burdensome, that financial institutions were capable of self-regulation, and that regulators should not interfere with activities reported as profitable.

The regulators can’t do it. These institutions are just too large and complex.

Fannie Mae may have conformed to the rules but the rules didn’t conform to reality. A major bank or financial institution could meet every single regulatory requirement yet still be at the risk of collapse.