Cody Willard, who is one of the co-hosts of Fox Business Network‘s “Happy Hour,” appeared on the “Tonight Show” Monday night and talked with Jay Leno.
Here is an excerpt of the conversation:
Leno: See, here’s the part I don’t understand. I mean, I’m always talking about bailing out the car companies. But it seems like if you’re bailing out a company that makes a product, like if I bail out Citigroup, the money just isn’t poof.
Willard: Yeah, do you feel better? The idea is the banking system is just supposed to be pipes. They’re not supposed to create anything. They’re supposed to take people’s deposits — money, capital — and put it in places that need it so that they can invest. You build a factory. Well, you can’t do it without money. I saved money. So, hey, why doesn’t the bank take money and give it to you? That’s the concept.
But what we’ve done now is it’s no longer about deposits. We’ve decided that Citigroup is the one company, Bank of America is the one company, basically the largest companies on Wall Street.
We have to make sure that they stay in place or the entire economy is going to go away. Whatever happened to innovation and creative destruction?
Leno: I agree. I agree. All right, so what should happen to Citigroup?
Willard: Let them go. Let someone else come in and take them over. Break them into 10 companies. If they’re too big to fail, why consolidate more? Too biggerer to failurer? I don’t know what that means.
Watch the segment here.
