Bob Ivry, an editor-at-large for Bloomberg News, is an experienced reporter and editor based in Bloomberg’s New York headquarters. After covering the economic downturn in 2008, he turned his experience into a book that details its aftermath.
In Depth spoke with Bob, who gave us insight into the life of a Bloomberg News financial reporter and his perspective on the markets.
Could you tell us about your career prior to Bloomberg?
When I was younger I worked in a warehouse, washed dishes, drove a cab, moved furniture, served food, stuff like that. I’m glad I have that experience. It’s given me perspective on society and an appreciation for how big-picture policies affect the majority of people. Being a dad and a mortgage borrower is also valuable experience for what I do.
What have you worked on since you started here?
I was involved as a reporter in Bloomberg LP’s lawsuit against the Federal Reserve, seeking details of the central bank’s unprecedented bailout of the world financial system. The financial crisis and the bank bailouts were certainly the biggest stories I ever worked on. I loved it.
Garrison Keillor, a well-known American author and humorist, said he couldn’t trust a journalist because the worst day of his life might be a career opportunity for a reporter. In my years of reporting on the bailouts, I always tried to take into account the majority of people, working in warehouses and driving cabs, and how it affected them.
What is your current focus in terms of financial coverage?
As editor-at-large for global markets, I have a chance to help reporters do stories internationally. That’s exciting for me because most of my attention until now has been on the U.S.
Bloomberg News is in a unique position because we have skilled news gatherers all over the world. So I plan to exploit that by marshaling stories about oil, rice crops, currency trading and emerging-market economies, among other topics, on all six continents.
My opinion is that the biggest finance story may be migrating away from the major banks, where it’s been for about a decade, and will be for a while longer, to the less regulated so-called shadow banking system; hedge funds and other investors who shift billions of dollars on a daily basis. Keep an eye on Bloomberg News’ global markets team if you’re concerned about the next big thing.
You have a new book out, “The Seven Sins of Wall Street.” What was the genesis of this book and how important were the events of the last five years in providing inspiration?
“The Seven Sins of Wall Street” is based on my reporting from 2008 to 2013. It’s not always easy to detect trends when you’re in the middle of them, but at some point in 2010 it became clear to me that the biggest banks, which had gotten even bigger due to the bailouts, were acting as if the financial crisis had never happened. They were behaving badly. They were still getting billions of dollars in an endless bailout that hasn’t stopped even now, in January 2014.
Washington, in the form of Congress and the Federal Reserve, the bank for banks, were coddling them. When I conceived the book, it was important to me to show the effects of the bailouts. Their legacy has helped create a two-tiered society.
There’s a quote attributed to the late billionaire J. Paul Getty. He said that if the bank lends you $10,000, the bank owns you. But if the bank lends you $10 billion, you own the bank. The government and the Federal Reserve continue to sink so much money into the banks you can see happening exactly what Getty predicted. And it’s to the detriment of the rest of us. That’s what my book is about.
How does working for Bloomberg give you an advantage in terms of breaking news or investigative reporting?
Bloomberg News is head and shoulders above competitors because of the resources we bring to bear. We have talented reporters and editors around the world, can travel if we need to, and are able to take the time needed to get what we have to for a great story.
A lot of news that can have a big impact takes analysis, deep reporting, and sometimes going back again and again to nail the story. Bloomberg News has the resources to do that.
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