Former La. governor's talk, the unedited version

I covered a Baton Rouge Press Club talk today with a former Louisiana governor, but space constraints on the piece whittled it to a teeny version. Here's the full text of what I reported on:

Former governor Roemer blames both political parties for economic sloth

A self-proclaimed proud Republican and conservative, former governor Charles “Buddy” Roemer nonetheless blames both major political parties for leading the nation to an economic identity crisis, torn between socialist Europe and “free market” China. And Louisiana, despite its business successes, cannot coast above the union’s challenges forever. “It’s not an island in the economy,” Roemer told the Baton Rouge Press Club today. “We are connected to the larger American economy. We’re losing our competitiveness. We’re losing our economic leadership and an empire that has taken the better part of 150 years” to build after the Civil War.

Roemer, president and CEO of Business First Bank in Baton Rouge, says rapid government expansion and slowed growth nationally mean the “the global economy will be running us, not we it.” Although he championed Civil Rights advances that helped Barrack Obama and Sarah Palin vie for top leadership roles in the nation, he found plenty that has gone wrong in recent decades, including banking deregulation under President Clinton and flagrant spending under President Bush that have led to debt that could “throttle” growth.

Recalling a trip to Paris a few years ago, he says he stood on the Arc de Triomphe and tried to count construction cranes in view, finding none. Months later during a trip to Shanghai, he says he stood on the Deutsche Bank building tried the same thing, giving up after counting 300. While the Chinese government is “very heavy handed” in its political interference, he says the country embraces America’s free market ideas, as does India, where the number of millionaires is on a stark rise. Meantime, he says federal agencies let “the big boys” in Wall Street banking rely on as little as 2 percent capitalization, while his bank imposes a 9 percent capitalization rule to protect against failing.

Such homegrown conservatism could keep the Gulf South a top-performing region for the next 25 years, he says, regardless of whether one can trust T. Boone Pickens. Roemer says he asked the energy industry magnate what natural gas, now priced at “$4 and some change” per 1,000 cubic feet, would trade at in a year; the reply was $8. “I just wish T. Boone knew what he was talking about,” Roemer says.