Doug Bereuter: “The problem with the mixing of commerce and banking is that market decisions are not made. Credit decisions are made on…”

“The problem with the mixing of commerce and banking is that market decisions are not made. Credit decisions are made on the basis of equity that a bank has in a business. We are more likely to have the market working properly when we have this division between banking and commerce as we have had since the 1930s, even tracing far back beyond that, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) earlier said, tracing back in some form to a period even before the founding of the Republic. I just cannot help but think of what happened in the home State of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) when we had under S&L law in Texas, in that State and some other States, an opportunity under their legislation to use federally insured deposits to make investments in their own name instead of loans to residents of their community. And I recall something like 50 percent of the total losses in the S&L debacle were in the gentleman's home State of Texas.”