Barney Frank: “You have got to sometimes differentiate yourself from your friends.”

It was a great mistake to push lower income people into housing they couldn't afford and couldn't really handle once they had it.

We should have made it much higher, $125 billion or more, and we should have indexed it.

I urge staff to pay close attention to the differences in products offered by nonbank institutions and to be mindful of Congress's intent in financial reform that State consumer protection laws be preserved to the extent possible.

For example, there are key differences in product characteristics between payday, car title, and other high-cost secured loans and more traditional closed-end unsecured lending and related products, and the products are often regulated…