“The only reason we didn’t have mass street panic in America [in the 2008 financial crisis] was because of the personal computer. My grandma called me in the middle of all this and said ‘Are we going to have bank lines like we did when I was a kid?’ I said, ‘That's ridiculous.’ Well, here's why. When she was a kid, people lined up outside of banks. Because of the personal computer, everyone who’s listening to this podcast right now, they all moved money during the crisis, but they did it on the computer so you didn’t have the scary visual. We didn’t have a scary visual because otherwise you would have had people in the streets.”
In this episode of Applecart’s “Decision Makers” podcast, Executive Chairman of TrailRunner, former Head of Corporate Affairs at Alibaba, and former Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications Jim Wilkinson discusses what it was like to lead in the 2008 financial crisis. Listen to the full episode and subscribe for more below!
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So how did that form of leadership manifest itself when when the crisis occurred? Right. Because, you know, I know at the time you guys took a lot of Flack over TARP. In the time since, I think most people recognize that TARP probably saved us from a much larger economic calamity. Like, what was it like in the room sort of trying to figure that out as it was happening? Well, First off, TARP, I mean, I'm a communications genius, right? That's like the worst name ever, Tart. I think we would agree with you. Well, we have appetite. You have TARP. I'm sorry. Let me back up. I, I think from Hank's perfect. I wanna talk about Hank and then the team from Hank's perspective. He saw it early. He knew what to do. I think people in the understand having him where he was and Tim Geithner where he was, and certainly Bernanke. But Paulson and Geithner were incredible. OK. And so just to see it early, I think that that was? Super important #1 #2. To systemically understand, let's just take AIG. I'm here walking in Hank Paulson's office and saying AIG's in trouble. And I said I was really upset. Why are we gonna let an insurance company make us like, do something that we oppose policy wise? He said. Jim, you don't understand AIU Holdings, Main, you know, insurers, most major projects around the country. A lot of construction projects and all kinds of other projects would just stop if we if if we let it fail. You don't understand that the jobs and so Hank had this unbelievable knowledge at a strategic level, but also the frontline level. Um. Of what? What was happening in economy? And you know, he he was a data fanatic. I learned from him words like very, extremely, I don't know what that means 1397. I know that means numbers, right? And so he was able to do that. But then you had someone like Kevin and former, you know, Kevin Fromer ran legislative affairs for Treasury without him, that doesn't get approved by Congress. Kevin just knew what to do there. OK, Barney Frank, you know who I probably wouldn't agree with most things, You know, Barney Frank was a a big part of that at the time, as was Charlie Rangel and others. And so not to mention that Pelosi and so. Hank was smart. He put this team together. Michelle Davis, you know, Michelle Davis ran communications at Treasure, was able to lead because at this point. Treasure was kind of in charge. I mean, President Bush had given a lot of authority to Hank and it was President Hank everyday working together to do this. But Hank, really. The President Bush was such an incredible leader in this time. But you know, I remind people this is an important point for your listeners. The only reason we didn't have mass St. panic in America was because of the personal computer. And people say, how can you say that? My grandmother called me in the middle of all this. She's dead now, but she called me and said are we gonna have bank lines like we did when I was a kid? I said that's ridiculous. Well, here's why. When she was a kid, people lined up outside of banks, OK, Because of the personal computer. Everyone who's listening to this podcast now, they all move money. During the crisis, they did on the computer. So you didn't have the scary visual. Does that make sense? We didn't have the scary visual because otherwise you'd had people in the streets. I remember that great line. There's a line of people out. I think it's Indie Mac, one of those banks to get their money. And this reporter asked, this guy says, why are you standing alone? He goes, I want my money. They said, well, how much you have in, you know, I got like $5000 in. And they said, you know, it's insured by the government. You have to worry. You can go home and goes, well, if it's OK with you, I'd like my money. Yeah. So it's just it's very human. And Hank had this great ability to understand the very human nature. But you had, you know, you know, people like Dave McCormick working internationally to make sure the allies didn't freak out. And you just had a lot of different people doing these things from a team perspective. And watching Hank build that team of people, of which I was lucky to be a small part of, was just incredible.
