Meet The Chicago Floor Trader Who Helped Inspire The Tea Party Movement

Joe Weisenthal (0:09)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

Tracy, do you remember what you were doing on February 19th, 2009?

Tracy Alloway (0:26)

That is oddly specific. I'm trying to think what might have happened on February 19th, 2009

It would have been-

Joe Weisenthal (0:33)

You can't remember very specific dates like that in the past?

Tracy Alloway (0:38)

No, about all I can remember is it would have been deep into the financial crisis and I would have been writing a lot about the fallout from the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and all the stimulus plans that the US government was unveiling at that time to try to prop up the economy. That's all I can think of. Those were the deep, dark days of 2009

Joe Weisenthal (1:00)

Yeah, it was very dark days to say the least.

The bottom of the market, I think the bottom of the stock market came about three or so weeks later. It really kind of felt like the entire world economy was just straight up becoming unglued in those days.

Tracy Alloway (1:15)

So I'm very excited. Are we gonna talk about the financial crisis? Because you know, financial crisis hindsight is my all time favorite topic.

Joe Weisenthal (1:23)

Kind of, we're going to talk about it. It turns out that February 19th was also a very pivotal day in American political history, because of course, out of that extreme period in the economy, we also sort of sent our political system on brand new trajectories.

Tracy Alloway (1:43)

Oh, wait.

I think I know what you're getting at. And I think it involves a certain rant that went on to become very, very famous.

Joe Weisenthal (1:52)

Exactly. So on February 19th, 2009, anyone who was watching a certain financial news network that was in Bloomberg and, you know, I'll just say it because we have to say it. So CNBC was treated to one of the most remarkable moments in probably TV history when Rick Santelli, who's still there, delivered a famous rant on the floor of the exchange in Chicago in his anger towards a lot of the stimulus measures that President Obama was unveiling. Remember, there was a hodgepodge of things.

There was stimulus. There were all these attempts to sort of stem the tide of foreclosures, do other things, mortgage modifications, things like that, something to sort of just stop the bleeding in the economy. And Rick Santelli was not a fan of it.

Tracy Alloway (2:47)

Yeah, I remember this clip. There was something deeply weird about a guy who made his name in finance, trading derivatives, being on TV. I think he was in front of the Chicago trading floor and just ranting about government bailouts and things like that. It was definitely memorable. Are we talking to Rick Santelli?

Joe Weisenthal (3:09)

We are not talking to Rick Santelli, but I don't know if you remember it, but there was someone standing right next to Rick Santelli, and he had, I think, a blue shirt with orange or with yellow sleeves.

And as Rick Santelli was getting the crowd riled up about who here wants to pay for their neighbor's mortgages, and they took out a mortgage they couldn't afford, and they have five extra bathrooms. Who wants to bail them out? The traders on the floor were getting very, they were very into the rant, at least it appeared so on TV. And there was someone standing right next to Rick Santelli, who has sort of played a pivotal role in all this, and we will be talking to that trader today. So I believe that, to some extent, that speech is credited with having catalyzed the Tea Party movement.

And because the person we're talking today was sort of an important character in that rant, you could say he too was an inspirant to that political movement. Before we get to our guests, let's listen to a very brief clip from that rant.

Rick Santelli (4:16)

How about this, President and new administration? Why don't you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages, or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water? This is America. How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? Raise their hand.