Ben Bernanke

But I do believe that our major banks have significant franchise values.

You do not create a market by Government action or Government regulation.

If we hadn't had the TARP money in October, we would have had a global banking crisis.

Evaluating the benefits of purchasing long-term Treasury securities.

Well, I do support the separation of banking and commerce.

I think the idea of using a public-private partnership in an asset purchase facility is potentially appealing.

It seems more appropriate, given the close relationship between the Federal and State governments, for that to be the locus of addressing those issues.

I think a complete recovery would require a global recovery and that would require----

If unemployment benefits are not distributed to the unemployed, then obviously they won't spend them and it won't have that particular element of stimulus.

We got involved in them, frankly, because there is no clear resolution authority, in the United States for dealing with systemically critical failing institutions except for banks.

As we look at regulatory reform, we need to ask the question, are all the sectors of the economy that need oversight, are they being watched by somebody or are there major gaps where there is no effective oversight where there needs to be

Honestly, Senator, I think it is not up to me to make that judgment.

So the purpose of the test is to try to ensure that even in a bad scenario, banks will have enough capital.

If we are going to have a strong recovery, it has to be on the back of a stabilization of the financial system

The purpose of these tests is to try to assess how much additional capital and what kind of capital they need so they will be able to lend and support the economy even in a situation worse than we currently expect.

There is no commitment by any means to never shut down a big bank. Absolutely not.

I think we want to get as much certainty about the policy going forward so people understand the rules.

We are going to be very tough on them to make sure... they take whatever drastic steps are necessary to restore themselves to profitability.

We would be delighted if the Congress would pass a substantial resolution regime that would create a set of rules and expectations for how you deal with a firm of this type that is failing and leave the central bank out of it entirely.

The worst thing that could happen is if we don't get cooperation from Europe, from Asia.

I think 'zombie' was not an appropriate description for any of the banks.

We need to think hard going forward how we are going to address that problem, but right now, we are in the middle of the crisis.

Well, if they were all tied to the stock market, that would certainly be a problem, right.

We are committed to ensuring the viability of all the major financial institutions.

It would reduce the stimulus effect of the package, yes.