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Isaac Chotiner has a reputation for totally destroying the people he interviews, something he does by letting the subjects hang themselves. I often wonder why a

Isaac Chotiner has a reputation for totally destroying the people he interviews, something he does by letting the subjects hang themselves. I often wonder why anyone agrees to be interviewed by him. That said, Barney Frank managed to hold his own against Chotiner, perhaps better than any other interview subject I've seen.

mc32 4y ago
Frank held his ground and knows his subject. The interviewer tried to pierce through but failed in the face of Frank’s solid arguments.
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FormerBandmate 4y ago
“I don’t know enough about the housing sector. I was making—“ is a pretty terrible last question. Barney Frank’s retort is hilarious: You don’t know that much about banking, either. You’re not supposed to; you’re not an expert. It’s the exact same issue as with banking. If I ruled as off-limits anything I’d worked on when I was in Congress, I guess I’d be a monk. That being said, Barney Frank’s rationale of wanting to make money is pretty openly terrible, he doesn’t come of great either
- benjaminwootton 4y ago
  People need money to live, and even wanting to make a lot of it seems fair enough. Non competes don’t usually go down very well in these parts, so expecting someone to voluntarily step away from their area of expertise is a big ask.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Why do you work at whatever job you work at? If they said “we’ll keep everything else exactly the same, but starting Monday, we’ll only be paying you minimum wage”, would you change anything? I like what I do; I like my colleagues; I’m proud of what our teams have accomplished, but I’m very clear that I work for money.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  Well he explains he wants to make money, and I want to make money too, so I dont get the terrible problem here: why not work in a company hiring you for the highest possible salary balanced by keeping your integrity ? Having made the mistake to have been an elected official in the past should not ban you from high responsibility jobs, maybe ?
jonmoore 4y ago
In this case Chotiner didn’t come back at weak arguments as much as he often does. In particular Frank downplayed the importance of stress tests, arguing variously that they are procedural, mostly about contagion, don’t concern the “physical”, i.e. capital, condition of banks, and wouldn’t have helped because “this all came up very suddenly”. This is all incorrect. Likewise when Frank argues in favor of his working for the banking industry, this raises conflicts of interests for legislators and potential for undue and hard-to-detect influence in a way that e.g. taking an academic position concerning banking or lobbying for gay rights would not.

mc32 4y ago

Frank held his ground and knows his subject. The interviewer tried to pierce through but failed in the face of Frank’s solid arguments.

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FormerBandmate 4y ago

“I don’t know enough about the housing sector. I was making—“ is a pretty terrible last question. Barney Frank’s retort is hilarious: You don’t know that much about banking, either. You’re not supposed to; you’re not an expert. It’s the exact same issue as with banking. If I ruled as off-limits anything I’d worked on when I was in Congress, I guess I’d be a monk. That being said, Barney Frank’s rationale of wanting to make money is pretty openly terrible, he doesn’t come of great either

benjaminwootton 4y ago
People need money to live, and even wanting to make a lot of it seems fair enough. Non competes don’t usually go down very well in these parts, so expecting someone to voluntarily step away from their area of expertise is a big ask.
sokoloff 4y ago
Why do you work at whatever job you work at? If they said “we’ll keep everything else exactly the same, but starting Monday, we’ll only be paying you minimum wage”, would you change anything? I like what I do; I like my colleagues; I’m proud of what our teams have accomplished, but I’m very clear that I work for money.
xwolfi 4y ago
Well he explains he wants to make money, and I want to make money too, so I dont get the terrible problem here: why not work in a company hiring you for the highest possible salary balanced by keeping your integrity ? Having made the mistake to have been an elected official in the past should not ban you from high responsibility jobs, maybe ?

jonmoore 4y ago

In this case Chotiner didn’t come back at weak arguments as much as he often does. In particular Frank downplayed the importance of stress tests, arguing variously that they are procedural, mostly about contagion, don’t concern the “physical”, i.e. capital, condition of banks, and wouldn’t have helped because “this all came up very suddenly”. This is all incorrect. Likewise when Frank argues in favor of his working for the banking industry, this raises conflicts of interests for legislators and potential for undue and hard-to-detect influence in a way that e.g. taking an academic position concerning banking or lobbying for gay rights would not.