The IG found that the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations and the Division of Enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission were made aware at least six times that there might be something wrong in Madoff's firm.

Today, we will consider a legislative proposal by the Administration to revisit the regulation of credit rating agencies.

Without that, there is no trust out there, is there?

Well, why do you want them then if----

I think we have to tackle the conflict of interest head-on.

if you don't even have the expertise to be able to figure out who is a reliable advisor and who is not, you shouldn't be running a bond fund in the first place

My last question, and my time is about up, you also propose--your proposal would authorize the Securities and Exchange Commission to delegate reviews of NRSROs to the Public Accounting Oversight Board.

How is the decision to leave the NRSRO ratings embedded in the regulatory framework consistent with the goal of not affording regulatory privilege to a large entity?

I strongly believe that the credit rating agencies played a pivotal role in the collapse of our financial markets.

I think that is probably an understatement.

How do we bring securitization back? How do we do this? I mean, it is based on trust, and maybe it is a brick at a time. But it worked so well for so long.

It would take a long stretch, wouldn't it, to bring a lot of confidence back into what we feel has been lost with the rating agencies, would it not?