Carl Levin

It will be necessary to establish a different relationship among the Active and Reserve components of our Armed Forces, and it is likely that we will have to establish a different relationship among our closest allies and partners.

Mr. Panetta, if you are confirmed, do you plan to continue the review of the USML?

Mr. Panetta, what is your understanding of the timing for this effort?

If the Government of Iraq requested the continued presence of U.S. military forces, including combat forces, would you recommend the approval of such a request?

The troops deserve our best.

The very markets we rely on to jump start our economy and invest in America's future are susceptible to market dysfunctions that jeopardize investor confidence.

That is why the market centers have proliferated to the extent that they have since Regulation NMS went into effect in 2007.

The merger of the data not just at the executing levels but also the exchange order books, and that is absolutely essential.

This was not so much a crash based on some glitch; this was an intentional effort on the part of somebody who had as little as $30 to $50 million and a few computers and a couple programmers.

I hope this hearing will help inject greater urgency into strengthening U.S. oversight of our fractured, high speed markets to restore investor confidence.

Fractured Markets. The first fact we need to grapple with is that our markets have changed enormously in the last 5 years.

How long it took the regulators to figure out what was going on in the Flash Crash is a direct result of the fragmentation of regulation.

I think that is an anticompetitive practice and ought to be seriously examined.

Customer information is certainly useful, I think especially if you are looking at it not from maybe necessarily every customer but certainly at the large trader thresholds.

The very markets that we rely on to jump start our economy and invest in America's future are susceptible to market dysfunctions.

Today, U.S. capital markets, which traditionally have been the envy of the world, are fractured.

I think we have been really penny-wise and pound-foolish in the way we have funded our regulators.

In my judgment, since these markets are so connected, it would seem to me that there is nothing preventing somebody from using one market to manipulate another market.

I do not want to give the impression that the equities market is unfair.

That fragmented and incomplete information, what is not included in the information, is the beneficial owner or the person putting the order in.

I think we need to worry less about the fragmentation of the market than we do about the fragmentation of regulation.

Nothing is above the scope of this hearing.

If we repeal don't ask, don't tell, as I believe we should, the legislation stipulates that repeal will not take effect unless and until there is a certification by the president, secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs…

If we repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' as I believe we should, the legislation stipulates that repeal will not take effect unless and until there is a certification by the President, Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs…

I think you ought to get your experts to provide for the record what those practical problems are.