I appreciate your invitation to testify on my experiences with the SEC with regard to the Bernard Madoff scandal.

Yes. How about, just in terms of you have the Boston office, the New York office. These things kind of go on.

I do not believe this could ever have been a one-man operation.

They wanted an investigation.

It didn't make sense for Boston to do it.

There can be no excuse for that colossal failure. But I demand--the victims of this fraud...demand--an explanation.

I support the President in his efforts to withdraw American forces from Iraq in the most responsible and rapid means possible.

Yes, it was, absolutely.

Bernie Madoff stole $50 billion, and maybe more. He stole from individuals, he stole from pensions funds, he stole from charities and municipalities.

So a single phone call, a single letter, would have exposed this for what this was----

The SEC received more than ample information in the form of detailed and substantive complaints, but a thorough and competent investigation or examination was never performed.

We appreciate that very much. And let me just say we appreciate very much as well the Administration's continuing conversation with us.

The question is how do you do this. We all recognize the problem. Now what is the answer?

We need to restore honesty and integrity to our financial system.

Instead of helping people understand risk, it was hiding risk, in effect, too often and relying on the people who paid their salaries.

What we are trying to do here is fashion, obviously, a piece of legislation that comprehensively deals with all of this, and the hope is we are going to do that when we get back in the fall.

I again want to commend you, your colleagues, and the Committee staff for the serious way in which you have attacked this national problem.

That shouldn't govern what decision is made.

I do support merging OCC and OTS.

Let me interrupt here. I want to make sure I get Senator Bennett in before the vote.

Last week I suggested further consolidation of bank regulators would make a lot of sense.

This is not to punish some or discipline some, but rather to try to think in 21st century architectural terms.

We need to preserve our dual banking system.

I hope not. I do not think many of the detractors of the current independent consumer agency proposal would continue to oppose the legislation--irrespective of how high the standards are--if the standards are uniform nationally and…

I really do not see that as a symptom of the fact that you have four different regulators overseeing different charters for FDIC-insured institutions.