Johnny Isakson: “I rise tonight following on the heels of three more bank closings in my State last Friday; not new banks, one of them…”

“I rise tonight following on the heels of three more bank closings in my State last Friday; not new banks, one of them over 60 years old, one of them over 100 years old. I want to talk for a few minutes tonight about the unintended consequences of well-intended regulation. We are now going into the 26th month of the current recession. This will arguably be the longest recession post-World War II America has experienced. I can tell you from having gone through four of the recessions post-1960, this is by far the worst of anything that we experienced. We are at a point where we have to make some good, solid decisions, but we have to help our economy, help our businesses, and help our financial institutions. Don't get me wrong at the outset. I am not talking about waiving or dispensing or looking the other way. I am not talking about loosie-goosie regulation which got us into the mess we are in: shoddy underwriting and poor credit. But what I am talking about are realistic approaches to difficult problems and looking to our past to understand the answers for our future. I wish to talk about rule 114, which is called mark to market.”