On the recordFebruary 9, 2012
It reminds me of baseball. You've got some players who are out on the field. They're saying, Well, you've got to hold the shortstop accountable for a little bit of what he did when he's out there on the field. But you've got the team coach sitting in the dugout. Right? They haven't touched the coach. They haven't even touched all the players yet, and they sure haven't seen the one who's calling all the plays. So what they're dealing with here are some of the mortgages in the secondary market; they haven't touched the coaches. They haven't touched the originators on the mortgages in this particular settlement. Now, in terms of you said how much does it help, the hole to our economy is several trillion dollars, counting unemployment and lost revenues and so forth. Overall, the TARP was $700 billion. I didn't support it. This settlement is maybe $25 billion. Ohio alone had a gap about that large. So when you look at the settlement, it's important, it's a victory. But we've got to take the next step. We've got to get the first baseman, the third baseman, the catcher, the batter, and then we've got to go after the coaches in the dugout.
