Let's keep in mind this is about whether or not the investors in these mortgages, some of whom made substantial profits during the glory days, should be required to take the losses when the mortgages that they invested in turn out not to be worth----

So, if we're going to be effective in dealing with this, we have to find some way to mitigate both the stigma of coming and the fear of changes in the future rules of the game that are going to apply to them.

But, I thought you started by saying you were going to terminate and wind down the Capital Purchase Program.

I think, actually, this is a program that's doing quite well in delivering a very meaningful improvement in the basic financial economic position.

Isn't it time to debate what we want our institutions to be?

It's very important to have this debate and we're having it now in Congress.

But, this is----

We do not want investors, in the future or these particular firms to live with the expectation that the government bail them out.

We do need a system in order to be able to liquidate large financial institutions.

When various forms of this creative banking triggered the economic crisis, the banks went to Washington for a handout, and all the while top executives kept their jobs and retained their bonuses even though the tax dollars that supported the bailout came largely from the middle class, from people already working hard to make ends meet. The beneficiaries of those tax dollars are now lobbying Congress to preserve the rules that had let those huge banks feast off the middle class.

Pundits talk about populist rage, as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class, but they have it wrong. Families understand with crystalline clarity, that the rules that they have played by, are not the same rules that govern Wall Street.