The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess in the committee at any time. This hearing is entitled semiannual testimony on the Federal Reserve supervision and regulation of Financial System. I now recognize myself for three minutes to give an opening statement. As we all know the dodd frank act vastly increased the powers of the fed way beyond has traditional Monetary Policy responsibilities. The act has made the fed omnipotent but cannot make it omniscient. No act can. Through the exercise of socalled heightened prudential standards the fed can control the largest Financial Institutions in our economy. Former fed governor kevin warsh recently wrote Central Bank Power is permissible in a democracy only when its scope limited, its track record strong and accountable assured. None of that do we observe today. Where his feds omnipotents has taken us . The big banks are bigger, Economic Growth lags and theres scant evidence our economy i
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our discussion of health scotts new book, connectedness and contagion. Here it is. If you didnt notice, we have copies for sale. Its my pleasure to remind that youre welcome to buy a copy and how will be available to autograph them. Here we are in aei stylish new Conference Center to discuss a very old problem, namely how best to survive panics of which there have been many across the centuries and survive fear and distrust when financial actors try to withdraw to protect themselves, a rational strategy for each but as we all know not when they all do it at the same time. Highly interested historically but much more pressing when we consider as his book does in detail and what should we do in the next panic which would surely arrive sooner or later. Two centuries ago David Ricardo observed a general panic may seize the country when everyone becomes desirous of treasury metals, banks have no security on any system, that is to say the private banks on th
1. And i ask for five more minutes. The presiding officer is there objection . Hearing none. Ms. Landrieu so this is the record. When people say democrats havent been willing to negotiate, that is false, false, false. We have been trying to negotiate for six months, and the way you negotiate is going to a budget committee. Now we are in control of the senate. The people elected us. No one appointed me here. The people of the United States elected us in a fair and square election. Some of us won by a lot. Some of us won by small amounts. But this was an election by the people of the United States. The people elected the Republican Leadership in the house. They passed a budget. We passed a budget. All we have to do is go to conference. But not everyone in washington is reckless. Not everyone loves to fight over our constituents misfortune of unemployment and lack of business. Theres a small group that put them on the chopping block, and they need to take them off. They should not be used
Cover. I am matt miller. And i am alix steel. Existing home sales, why can you . Ell us to g they are down five point one percent. The expectation was 4. 1 , so it did take a big toll. It is very obvious what happened during the month when you look the regional background breakdown. 7 almost in the midwest, down 5 in the south, 8. 3 in the west, everywhere affected, 80 of the country was affected in january by the bad weather. Singlefamily down 5. 8 . Condos and coops were flat, may be eager to get around in the with condos cities and coops. Overall, a bad month. Everybody will look through it and we will wait and see what happens when the weather starts to move up. We will keep you with us, mike. We will bring with us drew matus, deputy economist at ubs, given stamford, connecticut this morning. Drew, this is the lowest annual 2008. Ince obviously the weather is rough. I dont think it should be a concern. What would give me concerned and aart thinking is that we saw pickup in layoffs.
Continuing work weve got to do in afghanistan as well. Same number of of things added together. Also, there is a persistent bad from elements like al qaeda and al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that has the ability to generate a threat to the homeland. So that is very, very important. Are we going to be able to meet those with the troops that are projected to be there . Are we going to accomplish anation . Weve had so many families in this country sacrifice. Is it going to be worth it to that . I know you do this every day. How do you look at family is and say to time, we are going to pull out, maybe at levels they think might be dangerously low as i am geing information on this. How are you able to do that . When do we reach a hollow force, with the men in women we send in harms way are no longer protect it . We are going to do everything that the leadership will continue to do within our power to make sure that our troops are introduced into a dangerous situation or in combat that th