when you had rand paul guam the language of the federal reserve to require an audit from the federal reserve. >> on the open market. on the voting process by which the open market sets the rates. >> had that amendment been adopted, i don't think barney and knight could've gone forward with the bill. -- and i could've gone forward with a bill. oftroying the independence the federal reserve could've easily brought the whole bill down. as a result, they came very close. the amendment was about to be offered by bernie sanders who joined with the most conservative members of the senate. they join together on that proposal. bernie sanders, i talk to him a great lengths and he decided to i and change that. as a result, the amendment was not offered. we dropped the house provision. had that exact language would've

have been adopted, and you cannot get rid of it and that would've brought the whole bill down. that is an indication of what we're looking at today in terms of how congress looks at the financial services sector. when people start talking about repealing all of this and going back to the fall of 2008 as if somehow you can create out of the system a reflection of what used to be, i would caution you to be careful of what you wish for. >> there was this problem of the increasing conservatism of the republican party. the ukraine bill passed only after every other country in the world had agreed to rearrange the voting structurae. try to get ans amendment through to tell the

imf if they participate in the rescue of europe they had to stay out of dealing with the european crisis. we have the attack on the fed. this woulde that work with some of their republican allies that they support. you, i thought it was a pain in the ass dude to be defending the federal reserve. i have business people telling me you had to protect the federal reserve and then they gave money to the people trying to destroy it. >> we have time for one question. no pressure on that one question. if someone wants to ask the one. really? not one brave soul? much fun to pick

on former members of congress. >> we can repeat the question. [laughter] >> i think everyone here respects your efforts to try and make the financial sector much safer. you are fabulous or visitors of the country. there are a lot of people that think financial status -- sector may be at better risk today. thes not just the size of shadow banking sector and the leverage, but because the government is less able to flexibility.less

you say under dodd frank we have better foresight. tose committees will meet look at these indicators. was --earns the ability to for see a panic and a run on the bank is difficult. ways, i knowome you have made things safer. have you made things riskier in some ways? have you done enough to make the thing less opaque and have less average? that as agestion result of the bill the system is riskier is nonsensical. that i haveticisms

heard but rarely from the same person. [laughter] is is that the institution too much bank concentration, which more often comes from the left. then the other is we haven't enough bailout authority. the bill didrst nothing to advance concentration. one factor that led to increase concentration was something, bank of america got bigger when it took over merrill lynch. have provided a mechanism so that we no longer have to be the federal reserve and the treasury . leverage, the leverage is substantially reduced by much

higher capital standards. as to the nobel authority, there isn't ability to set up a facility that can lend to institutions, not just a one off, but consecutively so they can advance funds which are solvent. beyond that, the notion that we would have a situation where the offayers would be paying the debts of these large financial institutions with no penalties, that is not possible. >> this goes beyond your question and something we haven't talked about. barney knight didn't write something that is -- barney and i did not write something that was biblical. we did the best under the circumstances. i've never seen a bill that didn't overstate something or

understate something. the regulatory process is taking a long time to go forward. i mention the costs that rarely get discussed. is people go forward, you get intelligent people stepping up and offering intelligent ideas of how to make this work better. this process of the reviews and so forth that require it. it is not going to shock me to find out that some changes need to be made to cousin unintended consequences. neither one of us have a problem with that. you don't not pass legislation changesthere may be required down the road. , which is the sec doing an incredible job under the circumstances given the pressure they are under, to make sure that what we are doing, barney and i tried to frame this

, they gave all the power to the regulators. they never said anything of the definitions. we try to provide some parameters, leaving flexibility for those who know more about this and have the benefit of more comment to a sure we're making the right decisions. i'm confident that can happen. a slowly, but it will happen. thing.last people who are in the business, who have experience, they play a constructive part in improving it. not as long as they are still pushing it would drop dead. the price of participation and improving something is a willingness to accept its reality and work with it. that is one of the problems we have encountered so far. >> please join me in thanking the senators. [applause]

>> i would like to add my thanks. wherever you come out on dodd frank, the passion they bring to the debate is phenomenal. i hope you caught the senator dodd biblical reference. that was a subliminal message for you to go see noah this >> this year's commencement speeches from around the country. secretary jehity johnson, and janet yelena. -- yellen. >> for 34 years, c-span brings events to you. offering gavel-to-gavel coverage of the house as a public

service. we are c-span. brought to you as the public service by your local satellite or cable provider. >> in 1966 john kerry spoke as a graduate. this year he delivered the class day lecture. he spoke about the struggles of the 1960's generation energy graduates to keep faith in the ability to break gridlock. this is 30 minutes. minutes. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you very much. thank you.

thank you, thank you, thank you. i think winston churchill said who give aly people standing ovation are the ones who are wanting to -- their underwear. [laughter] members, parents, siblings who came here under the false impression that there , and someree food dan, wherever you are, probably at a fire hydrant somewhere, members of the 2013 ncaa champion ice hockey team -- [applause] distinguished guests and graduates of the 2014, i really am privileged to be able to be here and share the celebration

of the celebration of this day with you, especially 48 years after standing up right here as a very intimidated senior, wondering what i was going to say. you are graduating today as the most diverse class in yale's long history. or as they call it in the nba, donald sterling's worst nightmare. [laughter] [applause] thank you for such a generous introduction. josh did not mention that he entered for me at the state department last summer. ned for me at the state department lessor. [applause] hold on a minute. [laughter] i learned that he is not afraid to talk truth to power, or semi-truth. on his last day, he walked up to me and was brutally honest. he said mr. secretary, j.e.

sucks. [applause] actually, on the last day at the state department, he asked if i would come here today and deliver a message that his classmates really needed to hear. here it goes. you still owe, josh money from that road trip last fall. [laughter] [applause] i have to tell you, it is really fun for me to be back here on the old campus, i am accompanied by a classmate of mine. we were on the soccer team and he served as ambassador to italy recently, david thorne of. my daughter, vanessa, graduated in the class of 1999.

i know what a proud moment this is for your parents, but my friends, the test will be if they still feel this way next may if you live at home. i am really happy you made it back from myrtle beach. [laughter] as if you had not already logged enough take time -- keg time. remember, 4.0 is a good gpa but it is a lousy blood-alcohol level. [laughter] i love the hats. we did not have been when i was here. i love the hats. they are outrageous. they are spectacular. this may be the only event that pharrell can crash and go unnoticed. [laughter] i have been looking around.

i have seen a couple of red sox hats out there. [applause] few of thosen a dreaded interlocking ends -- n's and y's. that is ok. i said diversity is important. it is also a way for me to tell who roots for the yankees, and was graduating with distinction. [laughter] [applause] here is the deal. learned that and i i was not everyone's first choice to be up youhere. [laughter] when yale announced that i would be speaking, someone wrote, i hope they give out five hour energy to hhelp everyone stay awake. don't worry, folks. i promise not to be one minute over four hours.

haven'telse wrote, i screwed up as badly as the secretary of state -- yet. all i can say is, stay tuned. my favorite comment was this. yalereally proud that a secretary of state -- i should've stopped reading right there, because he went on to butt-ugly.t he is [laughter] there go my dreams of being on yale's 50 most beautiful list. [laughter] [applause] it really is a privilege for me to share this celebration with you. i am forewarned that no one remembers who delivers their graduation speech. all i remember about our speaker in 1966 is that he was eloquent, insightful, really good looking.

anyway, one thing that i promise you -- [laughter] one thing i promise you, i will stay away from the tired clichés of commencement, things like do what makes you happy, don't use the laundry room and saybrook. [applause] [laughter] that is about all i will say about that. [laughter] , "time"ter we graduated magazine came out with his famous man of the year issue. , "time" did not pick one man or one woman. they picked our entire generation. "time" expressed high hopes for us. they predicted that we would cure the common cold and cancer,

too. they predicted we would build smog-free cities and we would end poverty and war once and for all. i know what you are thinking -- we really crushed it. [laughter] question. did my generation get lost? well, that is a conversation for another time. -- me put one theory to rest it is not true that everyone in my generation experimented with flomax,lthough between viagra, now we do. [applause] [laughter] i did have some pretty creative classmates back then. e., of my good friends in j. i will set it right for you guys right now. one of my friends had at least

two harebrained ideas. start up was a little built on the notion that if people had a choice, they would pay more to mail a package and have it arrive the very next day. crazy, right? today, that startup is called fedex and by the way, it was thated in j.e which means j.e. rules. [cheering] the other nutty idea was to restart something called the yale flying club. admittedly, this was more of a scheme to get us out of class and off campus. i basically spent my senior year majoring in flying, practicing takeoffs and landings at an airport. responsible? no, but i would not have missed it. one of the best lessons i learned here is that mark twain was absolutely right.

never let school get in the way of an education. , did not know what in the time but yell tommy to finish what you start, and that is one thing that clearly separates us from harvard. [laughter] after all, a lot of those guys don't even graduate. zuckerberg,mark matt damon, what the hell have they ever amounted to? [laughter] for all i learned that yell, i have to tell you that the best piece of advice i got was one word from my 89-year-old mother. i will never forget, sitting by her bedside and telling her i decided to run for president. nd andueezed my ha said, integrity. integrity, john. member always, integrity. maybe that tells you a lot of what she thought of politics, but in a complicated world full of close calls that could

way, what keeps you awake at night is not so much you got the decision right or wrong, it is whether you made your decision for the right right reasons. integrity. the best piece of advice about diplomacy did not come for my international relations class but from my father, who was in the foreign service. he told me that diplomacy was about being able to see the world through the eyes of someone else, to understand their aspirations and assumptions. perhaps that is another word for empathy, but whatever it is, i will tell you, sitting here on one of the most gorgeous afternoons in new haven as you graduate, listening makes a difference. not just in foreign ministries, theon the streets and in suits, and on the social media networks. class of 2014, as corny as it may sound, remember that your

parents are not just your day as spectators. they are here as teachers. even if it is counterintuitive, it is not a bad idea to stay enrolled in their course as long as you can. gratefulmy part, i am to yield because i learned a lot here. in all of the ways that a great university can teach. there is one phrase from one class above all that for some reason was indelibly stamped into my consciousness. perhaps it is because i spent almost 30 years in the united states senate saying applied -- seeing it applied again and again. and the law school auditorium, my professor said simply, all politics is a reaction to felt needs. what i thought he meant is that things only get done in public life and the people who want

something demand nothing left and the people who make it happen decide that they can do nothing less. those felt needs have driven every movement and decision i have witnessed in politics since. from south africa a couple of decades ago to the arab string -- spring a few years ago to our own communities, were same-sex couples refuse to be told by their government who they can love. in 1963, i remember walking out of the white home -- dwight hall one evening after an active escape the most impassioned and eloquently i have ever heard. feel the needs to to engage in the struggle for civil rights right here in our own country. that is why, just steps from here, right over there on high street, we lined up buses that drove students from yale and elsewhere south to be part of the mississippi voter

registration drive and help break the back of jim crow. ultimately, we forced washington to ensure through the law that our values were not mere words. we saw congress respond to this felt need and pass the civil rights act and the voting rights act, and life in america did change. not only did landmark civil rights advances grow out of the citians and marches, -- sit-ins and marches, but we saw the clean air act and the safe drinking water act and all of it come out of earth day in 1970. we saw women refusing to take a back seat, forcing institutions to respond, producing title ix and the gale university that quickly transformed from the male bastion of 1966. ofizens, including veterans

the war, spoke up and brought our troops home from vietnam. the fact is that what leaps out at me now is the contrast between those heady days and today. right or wrong and like it or not, and certainly some people did not like it, back then institutions were hard-pressed to avoid addressing the felt needs of our country great indeed, none of what i talked about happened overnight. the pace of change was different from today. the same fall that my class walked in as freshmen, nelson mandela walked into prison. it was not until 30 years later, when my daughter walked through these gates for the first time, that mandela was his country's president. when i was a senior, the debate over the growing war in vietnam was becoming all-consuming, but it took another seven years before combat ended for our country and more than 25,000

lives. it was not until the year 2000 that we finally made peace and normalized relations. now, amazingly, we have four be enemies -- more vietnamese studying in america than from almost any other country in the world. daring journey of progress played over years, decades, and generations. today, the felt needs are growing at a faster pace than ever before, piling up on top of each other while the response in legislatures or foreign capitals seems nonexistent or frozen. it is not that the needs are not felt. it is that people around the world seemed to have grown used to seeing systems or institutions failing to respond. the result is an obvious, , if notg frustration

exasperation, with institutional governors. the problem is today's institutions are not keeping up or even catching up to the felt needs of our time. eyes, difficult decisions are deferred or avoided altogether. some people even give up before they tried because they just don't believe they can make a difference. the sum total of all of this in action is stealing the future from all of us. just a few examples, from little too big. a train between washington and new york that can go 150 miles per hour, but lacking modern infrastructure, goes that fast for only 80 miles of the trip. an outdated american grit which can sell energy from one end of the country to the other. growing moree urgent with 97% of scientists telling us for years of the imperative to act.

the solution is staring us in the face -- make energy policy choices now that will allow america to lead a 6 trillion dollar market. yet, we still remain gridlocked. , urgentlyn reform needed to unleash the full power of millions who live here and sensible and both fair. on the world stage, you will not escape it. even more urgency. we see huge, growing populations in places that offer little education, little economic or political opportunity. you are older than half their population. 40% of their population is younger than yale's next incoming class erie if we cannot galvanize action to recognize their felt needs, if we don't do

more to attack extreme poverty, provide opportunities and jobs, we invite instability and i promise you, radical extremism is all too ready to fill the vacuum left behind. what should be clear to is perhapsnd it what makes our current predicament so frustrating, is that none of our problems are without solutions. none of them. but neither will they solve themselves. for all of us, it is a question of will power, not capacity. it is a matter of refusing to fall to the cynicism and apathy that have always been the mortal enemies of progress. withquires keeping faith the ability of institutions, of america, to do big things when the moment the man said.