evaluating the benefits of purchasing long-term Treasury securities.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Call it public-private partnership. It is not nationalization because the banks will not be wholly owned

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Congress needs, in my opinion, to set forward a much more elaborate version of FDICIA.

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.

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

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

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

I do believe that once the economy begins to recover, we will see improvements in financial markets.

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

we want to keep the option open to buy Treasury securities if we think that is the best way to improve the functioning or reduce interest rates in private markets.