Richard Shelby

As we consider the future of the GSEs, I believe we would be wise to remember the disastrous consequences that poorly regulated GSEs can have on our financial markets.

We must ensure that this never happens again, but the question is: Will we?

That would be the most thinly capitalized financial institution in the world, would it not?

To properly consider the future of the housing GSEs, one should first consider the goals policymakers have for the U.S. housing finance system, and specifically the secondary market.

We have underpriced it at our own peril, have we not?

I am at a loss as to why the Administration does not or did not consider the GSEs to be a central cause meriting immediate consideration in regulatory reform.

Despite repeated warnings by me and other Members of this Committee about the risk that GSEs presented, they were allowed to accumulate more than $5 trillion in financial obligations with only minimal amounts of capital.

If one is doing business in Iran today, then they are probably doing business with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Should these two revelations lead to a reevaluation of the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran?

I think that there are so many different reasons why the potential possession of a nuclear weapon from Iran would pose a danger to us and to the region.

In other words, you are saying you would not ignore the new revelations.

If original export license requirements are removed for items exported, for example, to the European Union, how will the United States be able to enforce its re-export license requirements?

What would the effect be if the United Nations and the European Union worked with the United States in sanctioning all the Iranian banks?

The State Department--you are the Deputy Secretary there--continues to identify Iran as 'the most active state sponsor of terrorism.'

Iran remains a serious and growing threat to the entire Middle East region, our European allies, and the interests of the United States.

Iran has acquired 'sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable nuclear weapon.'

Iran has the dubious distinction of being the most active state sponsor of terrorism for 10 years running.

We are always going to have in a market system winners and losers, failures and success, and that is the genius of the market in a sense.

Were they too big to regulate?

And that is no easy task.

As banking becomes increasingly global, the U.S. financial regulatory structure, I believe, needs to make sure it can adequately handle the failure of banks operating globally.

Has the SEC staff considered, to your knowledge, or seen a particular financial statement prepared under the rules of the international standards as opposed to FASB, and how do they work?

This is, I think, a very timely hearing and a very needed hearing dealing with international cooperation.

You are a 36-percent stockholder, the largest stockholder in Citigroup--that is, the taxpayer.

I want to shift to AIG.