All you need is one significant outlier to throw off the--to toss up the apple cart.

I think the leaders in Europe and the United States, Canada, Latin America, they are all interested in this subject.

How in this international financial world, with a national system of regulation, don't you always flee--doesn't money always flee to the lowest common denominator?

However, new factors, including technology, globalization, and industry consolidation and evolution have left our regulatory infrastructure too far behind the reality of today's global financial system.

Eight years of the Bush Administration's one-sided, laissez-faire, deregulatory ideology have helped cripple our financial system.

I have been on Banking Committees for 28 years and I think you have been testifying before them for about 28 years.

Well, to clarify, my view would be to go back to the investor-paid initially.

Don't you think the Fed is pretty well removed from political pressures?

Even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, once an ardent defender of deregulation and the free market, recently acknowledged that there was a 'flaw' in his belief that markets could and would regulate themselves.

I think we all have an interest in maintaining the independence of the standard setters.

I think we are a far cry from the SEC that was established by Joseph Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.

We need to have a real auditor that has some accountability.

This kind of exemptive rule is, in my view, deregulation carried to excess.

I am confident that the changing of the guard, particularly the appointment of Mary Schapiro as the new SEC Chairman, will be a good start toward reforming the SEC.

Today's SEC appears stagnant and behind the times, almost always closing the barn door too late.

I want to thank the witnesses and thank the Chairman. I look forward to the testimony.

That is why Senator Shelby and I, among others, are introducing the Safe Markets Act today, which, among other things, would authorize the hiring of 100 new SEC enforcement staff as well as FBI agents and prosecutors to go after criminal…

The industry is coming to agree with me.

You cannot be your own watchdog.

The Bernie Madoff fraud was a punch to the gut of our financial system which was already reeling from too many haymakers.

I endorse him, without qualification, unequivocally, and with a great deal of pride that someone of his talent has been nominated.

I think our leadership on this is critical to our bona fides with respect to Iran, North Korea, and the rest of the world.

It would be a blatant violation if someone did the same--a Democrat did the same thing on the liberal side.

Just one more on the Civil Rights Division--again, a crown jewel of this Justice Department.

It is hard to be a straight shooter when you are a blind loyalist.