The regulators have some culpability here.

Since the passage, however, S&P, Standard & Poor, has said that it will confer higher credit ratings on the largest banks because it continues to assume that there is still the potential for the Government to provide 'extraordinary…

Today, as you said, we will examine the State of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

I think a lot of this industry pressure to count debt as capital would go away.

This I believe is an appropriate time for this hearing as it comes at the end of Chairman Sheila Bair's 5-year term.

Chairman Bair's time in office has been marked by the financial crisis and by profound changes in banking law.

There was a couple hundred billion dollars of dividends that got paid out of banks and bank holding companies leading up to the crisis that should never, in my view, have happened.

As I understand the agreement of Basel III Capital Accords, the agreement and the thrust is to increase the amount of capital that large global banks must hold.

We delayed it in the United States with support from Senator Shelby and others, and we appreciate that very much.

It was not really capital.

Wouldn't it be good policy in a free market economy to basically let the world know and the banks know and businesses know that if they fail they are going to be closed up?

But it sure did not make them any stronger, did it?