On the recordMay 10, 2010
I am honored to rise to address the Volcker amendment, which I am pleased to be able to cosponsor with my colleague and friend who is now presiding over the Senate. I thank Senator Levin for the outstanding job he has done in shining the light on the need for financial reform through his Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. I also wish to thank Senator Dodd for shepherding this important financial reform and bringing such a significant and solid bill to the floor of the Senate, and I thank him for working with several of us to strengthen the approach proposed in the Volcker amendment. The goal of our financial system is to efficiently aggregate and allocate capital. That is sometimes done through banks that make loans, and that is sometimes done through pools of investors who put their money together and ask managers to find the highest return. But these two functions of lending and high-risk investing, although both critical to the capital system of aggregating and allocating our dollars, are in fact very different. This Volcker amendment is all about creating the right balance between these two so they work collectively to make a more efficient, stronger financial system rather than working at odds with each other.
