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dylan ratigan. the good, the bad and the missing from our president's big speech today to wall street. we'll have reaction from senators durbin, lincoln, kaufmann, congressman mike pence and phil angeledis. what's wrong with the immigration law? why are the state's lawmakers doubling down on crazy? also the world's most ridiculous toys for the rich. how about a $3 million iphone -- anyone? the show starts right now. in america today, the president headed to wall street, trying to close the sale of a plan he claims will reform our nation's banking system. the president, flanked by americans who have suffered because of big bank deception, homeowners whose mortgages are under water, although you could

argue they shouldn't have taken those mortgages. credit card holders hit with 25% interest rates. and a baltimore woman who was charged with $148 in overdraft fees in one month. also in the audience, the faces of the greed that caused the financial crisis. men like goldman sachs ceo lloyd blankfein. the president's message to wall street -- get on board. >> we don't have want to have an economy that, that addressing the underlying problems. >> the president putting the blame squarely on those who took the risky bets in secret, with our money. they continue to do it to this very day. >> a free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. what happens in waults has real consequences across the country. >> so far, we think of the plan

as the good, thelp bad and the missing, as i referenced off the top. first, the good. it does bring tremendous transparency to the markets, mainly shiping a light on the vlad shadow banking system. the work of people like senator blanche lincoln, who we'll talk with momentarily, shining through as an emblem of what can be done if you're properly motivated. the bad, none of the proposals fix too big to fail. why not actually break up the banks or reform their structure, so they cannot exploit their too big status to the advantage of them and the disadvantage of every other bank and business in this country. instead of getting rid of too big to fail, the president is creating the equivalent of a $50 billion fraternity that creates two classes of banks. it doesn't stop them from gambling with your money and does nothing to increase the

lending to small business. is two classes of banks, one with a special government guarantee democratic? is that american? not in my world. and the missing -- the cops are still working for the crooks. this may be the most important thing. those who are supposed to regulate our banks, get their money from the banks. the s.e.c. is completely underfunded by our government. the ratings agencies that rate those securities sold in the crazy goldman deal? they get their money from the banks. not from the buyer. and the federal reserve, who is supposed to be watching all of this in the first place and had the power to prevent the banks to get this big didn't use it. now prints money at your suspension sperns aexpense and benefit. the fed set to get more power. lots ever questions remain. joining us now, senator dick durbin, democrat from illinois. senator, your reaction to the president's speech? >> i think the president really

hit the high points of what we're trying to achieve with wall street reform. the notion of too big to fail left the taxpayers holding the bag when financialists constitutions made some of the worst decisions in their history and almost cratered our economy. secondly the issue of transparency, more openness, open-market trading, so we can understand what's going on in these transactions. and finally, the strongest consumer financial protection law in the history of the united states. these are all desperately needed. >> the bill in its current form gives the federal reserve more power and has the ratings agencies still under the employment of the bank as opposed to working for the bond investors, the pension managers, those who actually represent our teachers, our police and our firemen. so much of this happened because of the misrepresentation or the misunderstanding of the value of the things being sold. why is the financial reform bill refused to empower the buy side and leave the banks in control of their regulators and their ratings agencies? >> i would like to see more

strength in that provision, to be honest with you. the ratings agencies really let us down. there was a lot of confidence in their projections in terms of the viability of some of these deals and it just turned out to be flat-out wrong. so i, i agree with you. i'd like to see a stronger provision in this bill when it comes to policing those credit agencies. >> policing them? why not just have them not work for the banks. isn't it a conflict of interest, if i'm selling something and i'm paying you to give me a good score so you can sell it to some dumb german bank. how about the ratings agencies work for the buyer, not the seller? >> makes sense to me, no argument here, i would like to see a stronger provision in that. >> let's talk about too big to fail, the resolution authority or other ways to deal with the now-massive banks because of the financial crisis. they're bigger than they have ever been. what's your opinion of the resolution authority that by my judgment, creates two classes of banks. one that is codified too big to

fail forever and can get cheaper capital and take excessive risk regardless of who's going to pay to resolve them. i've created a two-class system which strikes me as undemocratic and unamerican. >> we're looking at what we went through here. a year and a half ago. when people were staying up audiota all night on wall street, dreaming up ways to restructure or even to liquidate. what this bill tries to do is have an orderly process here. where we sit down with these different institutions and have them chart out their demise. so that we can say how is it going to happen? who's going to pay for it? and the bill of course says the taxpayers are not going to pay for it. it will not be a taxpayer-funded bailout. these institutions reached a point in the past where we couldn't afford to have them fail. i sat in on the meetings where paulson and bernanke said we cannot let aig go down. we have to do whatever it takes to keep them in business. whatever it took was $180

billion taxpayer dollars. we doesn't want to see it repeated. >> i'm confused because some of the $180 billion taxpayer dollars were paid by the new york federal reserve, or with the approval of the federal reserve to goldman sachs to pay off on the $1 billion bet revealed last friday. so it's a good thing that the taxpayers are there to pay off the $1 billion side bets of american bankers. i do not understand why it is that we refuse to break up the megabanks. >> over the years they've made the argument on wall street that they needed this power and concentration. in order to be competitive on a global basis. i think we saw during the course of the recession, the down side of that decision. i would like to see more competition myself. i don't think there's anything inherently good about this concentration of wealth and power. i would much rather see the competition you've described. >> so why not break up the megabanks? >> i think that's a bridge too far for this wall street reform. >> why? >> i just don't think it's going to occur. i think you know as well as i do, political realities suggest it might not occur even if it is the best policy that we would

lean to. >> and what is the political reality that would prevent us from the best policy? >> well you've got an awful lot of investment now in those banks and the people that work for them. and their investments around the world and around the united states. and i think anything that would be that massive and changing would go way beyond what could be accomplished in congress. don't overlook the value of the bill that we are debating. this bill really takes an important step forward to avoid a rerun of the recession we've been through. what you've talked about seen more massive restructuring. but i think it may be beyond our grasp. >> senator, thanks for the time. i know you got to run, i appreciate it. joining us now, senator blanche lincoln, democrat from arkansas. senator lincoln, your reaction to the president's speech? >> i think the president is right on target in the sense that we really do have to get to the bottom of this. we've got to get true reform out there, we've got to get transparency out there. i think it will be instrumental in putting our economy back on track and building confidence

among consumers and the marketplace. not only in the u.s., but worldwide. >> the president saying today, a vote for reform is a vote to stop taxpayer-funded bail juts. >> from the start i've insisted that the financial industry, not taxpayers, shoulder the costs in the event that a large financial company should falter. the goal is to make certain that taxpayers are never again on the hook because a firm is deemed too big to fail. >> the fact is, his plan as it stands right now, creates what i call a $50 billion fraternity. two different classes of banks. one that are too big to fail like jp morgan, like bank of america, like citigroup. and they're going to have the inherent advantage of lower cost of capital, because they're a member of that special club. why is there two classes of banks created here as opposed to breaking up the megabanks and restoring fairness and democracy in this country? >> well, as you know, what i've proposed, it may be simplistic. but i think it really gets the

job done. and that is to say, we want banks to get back to doing what banks do. and banks that pay the insurance corporation, need to, if they want to continue to do risky swaps, take those operations out. set them apart. they're going to take that risky operation out and it's going to require more capital and it's going to require more regulation. but making sure that banks do what banks do, and if they want to do more, then they need to move that operation out. and that's what we're going to be trying to do out of the ag committee, which we did mark up, and i feel good about that. and i hope that we'll continue to stay on that course. >> josh rosner from graham fisher reported that there have been initial conversations between jamie diamond, the ceo of jp morgan and the treasury secretary, to attempt to water down your legislation. to reduce the amount of transparency and in derivatives so that at least 30% of them are still traded in secret. have you heard of any such conversation? are you concerned that there will be efforts either by the

banks or the treasury to reduce the amount of transparency that you seek? >> i have not heard of those conversations. i hope that that's not the case. i think the transparency and 100% transparency is really critical. shining the light of day on these dark markets and on the activities, making sure in that transparency with real-time reporting to both regulators and to the public, it gives us the kind of information that we need to insure that whatever is happening, is, is being reported. and that if there is fraud and abuse that's occurring or mismanagement or people taking advantage of the system, then we know that. and giving regulators the amount to go in and fix that problem is critical. >> the bill away from your contributions to it, does preserve too big to fail through a two-class system. do you believe it is appropriate to preserve these two classes of

banks, with or without the resolution authority? and why is there such a hesitancy to simply break up the megabanks that were effectively too big before the crisis, and multiplied it by exponential amounts if you're jp morgan or goldman sachs after the crisis and becoming too much bigger to fail, so much bigger it's absurd they can't fail. >> i think we do break that up. by requiring them, if they want to be a bank, they're going to have to be responsible to their, to their depositors. by taking any of that risky business outside of the bank. making sure that they're doing that in a place where it has to be appropriately capitalized. and where it's got more regulation on it as it should, because it's a riskier step and a riskier business. and the fact is, we bailed out aig to the tune of what, $180 billion or so? we now own 80% of it as taxpayers. 80% of that aig, we own. and the problem is, what's, how much is enough? i mean, how much are we going to put into a fund that's going to

be actually enough of what we need, to, if we were to allow too big to fail to continue? i do believe there needs to be resolution regime in place, in order to deal with things as they begin, as they get too big, and are put in a position where they're not going to be able to survive. how you break them down. but bailing them out is not, is not, nowhere close to the solution it should not even be an option. >> all right, senator lincoln, enjoy your day, thanks. coming up on the "dylan ratigan show," republicans on the financial reform, is the gop now the party of maybe as long as it doesn't do too much? we'll find out. we'll talk to one of the gop's best leaders, congressman mike pence, we'll see where he stands on too big to fail, plus the cops working for the crooks. plus, going off the deep end in arizona, lawmakers passing a birther bill as an encore to that controversial immigration plan. and michael steele's blunt

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hi, welcome back. let's talk about something else for a minute. mixing things up on the day's lovely and strange news headlines. speaking of strange, let's go to arizona. another surprise from michael steele as well. i'm beginning to like this guy more and more. first up, what is wrong were

arizona? the arizona house just approved a bill that requires presidential candidates to show their birth certificate if they want to appear on the state ballot. this measure an obvious stens of the birther movement, which claims the president was not and is not, was not born here and is not a citizen. meanwhile, arizona's governor muscling a decision on another controversial bill, immigration related that lets police stop and demand documentation from people on the suspicion that they are here illegally. apparently you identify them by virtue of the shoes they are wearing or perhaps the music they listen to. our panelist, chris cofina snd chris stirwalt. chris, your thoughts on what the aggregate behavior of the arizona state legislature the past couple of weeks here. >> well some like the bill on presidential birth certificates, probably falls into the category

of stupid things that state legislatures do. it's obviously -- >> go to youtube. carry on. >> arizona gets more attention because people were shocked by the immigration legislation that the state, that the legislature did approve. governor jan burris is thinking about signing. i think they fall into two very different categories. one is probably intended to with the birth certificate, is probably intended to mollify a small subset. the other one addresses something that arizona residents are very concerned about. when they talk about immigration, with the murder of the rancher and all of these other stories that have been out there. people are freaking out about illegal immigration in the state and i'm not surprised that the legislature acted. >> chris cofinas, how much of this is something you would see

on chat roulette and how much of it is the sense of the feeling of vulnerability to immigration. >> the birther one is just downright crazy. >> put it on chat roulette. >> we'll put it on chat roulette. >> sure. in terms of the immigration issue, the notion that somehow you're going to federalize state law enforcement to basically decide on their own who is legal and illegal. do they think they walk around with a badge on their shoulder? >> it's the music they listen to i'm telling you, you can tell by their shoes. >> it's a very dangerous road to go down. does everyone agree we sneed to do something about immigration reform? of course, but to do this is going to create the kind of division and i would say fear that's counterproductive and goes against the very values of this country. >> the whole thing is rife from hypocrisy from top to bottom, think it will make for a fun conversation this summer. hopefully we can make it little

better than it is right now. let's move on to michael steele. next to joe biden, steele told students at depaul that african-american voters have no reason to vote for the gop. he criticized its party for losing its historical link. he said you don't really have a reason to vote to be honest, we haven't done a very good job of really giving you one. does michael steele deserve points for honesty here, chris? >> well he deserves points for honesty, yes. but he also deserves negative points, i think it cancels itself out. because the line that steele has been putting out there is that he's a victim in this because of his race and that the problems that he's had -- >> you're referring to the strip clubs? >> everything. in the colossal mismanagement of the rnc. we saw another story today about no spending controls at the rnc. it goes on and on. the republicans are holding their heads. they can't believe how poorly

run the rnc has been under steele and he's used race repeatedly to try to evade that issue with his party. let's face it, michael steele has obtained an advantage from his race, vis-a-vis becoming the chairman of the republican party it hasn't been a hindrance. and i think for him to continue to cloak himself in this issue is a little distasteful. >> chris, quickly? >> well i sometimes think michael steele works for the democratic party. >> and joe biden works for the republicans, that's the joke. >> when it comes to steele, every time he seems to say or do sgs, it's to hurt the republican party. just again, he hurts the republican party. i sometimes wonder whether he knows he's the chairman of -- the republican party. at the end of the day, at the end of the day, steele, i think is not clearly comfortable in the role. how long he lasts, who knows. my guess he lasts until the mid-term. he's not going to last much longer than that. >> say what you will, dinner with biden and steele would be a good time. still ahead in today's town

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the bill that, that we have in front of us will actually provide permanent bailouts for wall street and enshrine too big to fail. >> the administration said it wants to end bailouts? i say to them -- prove it. >> welcome back. that, the republican reaction to the president's big wall street reform speech today. republican party leadership at least on the surface pushing back hard on the democrats' plan that at this point creates two classes of bank. one, the $50 billion fraternity with an implicit guarantee. and everybody else, well, you're out of luck. however, what is the gop angle here? after all, no lawmaker can

afford to let them fail wall street. banking an anywhere this country, too much to avoid, so the gop can not afford to appear to be soft on the banks. but can they afford to be harder on the banks? today we're starting to see signs that the a least some members of the gop are warming to parts of the democrats' plan. yesterday republican senator chuck grassley actually voted in favor of democratic senator blanche lincoln's derivative reforms bill which is the hallmark and new standard for transparency in bank legislation. he was the lone gop vote on the plan. add to that senator shelby's new-found optimism that a deal with senator dodd might be possible. shelby's quote, we're closer than we have ever been. is the gop now getting on board? and if that is is, is that only so they do not have to come up with a stronger plan that actually deals with too big to fail? or actually stops the cops from being able to work for the crooks like the ratings agencies and regulators who currently get their money from the banking

system? joining us now, house republican conference chair congressman mike pence of indiana. how do you react to the speech today, congressman? >> hey, dylan. what was not in the speech was probably more news worthy and noteworthy and disappointsing than what was in the president's speech. i didn't get to hear all of it. but the fact that the president really didn't address the issue of too big to fail, which is really at the core here, whether we're going to make permanent the bailout policies of the t.a.r.p. whether we're going to create this implicit guarantee of certain organizations that are too big to fail. and also i just have to tell you, the fact that the president has not spoken at all about gse reform, fanny mae and freddie mac, at the core of the housing financial crisis recently. i think it's very disappointing. but beyond that, there is some word on capitol hill, some movement on capitol hill, and you know, i hope that the

rumblings that we're hearing that there may be a willingness, not only to abandon the bailout fund, the $50 billion fund, but even consider abandoning some of the bailout authority in the bill. it might, it might allow a way forward where we could provide some consumer protection on derivatives and other things, some new regulation and move forward in the best interests of the country. >> you have to give compliments to blanche lincoln and grassley and the rest of the folks on the senate ag committee for the transparency in the derivatives market, though? >> no one on capitol hill or frankly any observers around the country doubts that some of the new boutique instruments that turned into toxic assets need to be regulated as ordinary securities. and so some of this, these new rules and regulations about derivatives are welcome. but at the very core of this, and again the president, you know, didn't get into this whole question of too big to fail, at least as i was informed today. you know, the idea of offering

an implicit guarantee to certain financial organizations, i think would be very damaging to regional and community banks around indiana, around the midwest and around the country. at the preference of large institutional investors on wall street. and it just, the bailout approach is something the american people have really rejected and a permanent bailout just cannot be a part of this bill. >> it's been said that when it comes to too big to fail and when it comes to the type of conflict of interest we see with the ratings agencies and the banks, this is not a left-right issue, this is a smart versus stupid issue. do you believe that the coalition between republicans and democrats can be formed to solve this smartly? so that we restore fairness, restore lending, restore investing and stop giving special privileges to certain institutions who have special relationships with our government? >> you know, i don't know. i might leave that more to the pundits, especially one with the

background in financial services that you have. you know, there's some talk, the white house is willing to do without the bailout funds, the $50 billion fund. i don't hear anybody talking about giving the bailout authority that was in this bill. it was congressman brad sherman who said the dodd bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. that's something that wall street desperately wants. but doesn't dare ask for close quote. you know, we need to make sure that we're not expanding the ability of the administration, expanding the ability of treasury, fdic, to do bailouts, to have an unlimited access to taxpayer money. and so i don't yet hear people talking about that. if removing the authority, as well as the bailout fund was on the table, we could probably get to the beginning of a reform bill that would really serve the best interests of the country. and i think, dylan, could be bipartisan. >> how do you feel about the

proposed amendment from senators brown and kaufmann to break up the big banks? >> not familiar with the amendment. certainly willing to look at it. i'd rather see us create an environment where you let the market decide if we're back in the category here of essentially the coercive hand of government trying to rearrange the marketplace. look, we ought to get back to the simple notion that is true on main street in america, it ought to be true on wall street in america. that is, the freedom to succeed has to include the freedom to fail. i think you create a accountability. you bring about some reforms in these ratings organizations, so that the consumers and investors have credible information. you throw in gse reform, you reject too big to fail. i think the marketplace will sort out itself. >> i couldn't agree with you more. i appreciate the conversation and looking forward to more from the republican leadership on all of those issues. as lawmakers battle over the future of the reform, new

developments in the crisis commission. gambling with our money in secret. this week the commission slapped the credit rating agency who goes largely unreformed under the president or the democrats' reform plan with a subpoena after investigators determine the company was not complying with document requests. the first subpoena the panel has issued to force compliance. think of these ratings agencies as the ones that are rubber-stamping effectively the toxic bonds being sold by the goldman sachs, deutsche banks and merrill lynchs of the world to your pension fund or some dumb german bank. joining us now, former california state treasurer, phil angeledis, phil, why the subpoena? >> well, pretty simple. we've interviewed hundreds of witnesses, we've asked companies across the board and government agencies to provide us documents and mootdy's has not complied timely. we've made it clear to people that we're not going to have the clock run out on us and moody's

didn't begin producing documents, so we a issued a subpoena and we'll do it whatever we need to. >> have you had any insight as to whether there has been the deliberately manufacturing of toxic securities that are bundled together, stamped with aaa through some formula and sold to unwitting pension managers. is there evidence of that? >> well here's what we're doing. we're doing a full scrub. one of the issues we're looking hard at is kind of the flow of toxic loans all through the system. when i started this journey as chairman of the commission, i often thought of toxic assets, as assets that somehow went bad on the bank's balance sheets. and i think one of the real open questions is whether they were toxic from day one. one of the issues we're looking at are the level of mortgage fraud that existed around the country. we're taking a look at whether banks as they, and other financial institutions, as they originat originated, securitized these mortgages, whether they ever bothered to check whether they

were fraudulent or not. or whether they even met their own standards. in our hearings a week ago, we heard from the chief business underwriter at citi mortgage, part of citigroup, that he reported up 40% to 60% of the loans that citigroup was buying, subprime loans didn't even meet their own standards. it's a very significant question about whether these toxic loans from the get h-go were just hand up through the system, to determine with the aiding and abetting of the credit rating agencies. >> left in the hands of the american taxpayers. in the context of our own ownership of aig in the amount of money that has been delivered to all the financial institutions in this country, and the context of the small budget that you've been given to perform your task, $8 million, how can you be expected with evidence or information being suppressed like the aig emails, which i would suspect be tremendously revealing between

aig, goldman sachs, goldman sachs and the treasury, all the rest of it. without that information and with an $8 million budget, how can you be expected to really solve this? >> well look, we've been given the budget we've been given and our job is to do the best we can with it. we've got a good team of investigators, we're working 24/7. look, we're a small band. many of the financial service companies on wall street will spend more in lobbying this year than our total budget. haven having said that, we're going to take a look at the big picture of what happened. try to get rid of some of the urban legends and myths and just lay the facts out. and we're doing surgical investigations and inquiries. we can't cover the whole world. but we can look at specific individuals and institutions and try to strip some of the veil back for the american people. so they can see some of the levels of risk that were taken. the casino kind of instruments that are deployed on wall street. our job is to peel back some of that veil.

i think we started that process, you saw our hearings last week with the federal reserve and citigroup. we've uncovered documents that no one has before. >> i would like to see you with more than $8 million, maybe we'll start up a fund here on the show. to the angeledis commission. thank you. next something we found while you hopefully were working, just this once -- i'm told, it's okay to stare at the sun. nasa's new satellite launched in february is turning out some amazing photos of our sun's surface. scientists say the images will help them understand the sun's impact on climate change, not to message the rarity of being able to deny your mother's directive and look directly at the sun. . up next in "busted" the gop standing by the politician who says you should be able to pay your doctor with chickens. the barter economy for medicine. plus the hero of financial

reform, senator ted kaufmann, one of the few who tells it exactly like it is in our congress, joins us in the "town square" to talk about his amendment to break up the big banks. [ crowd cheering ] [ male announcer ] competition... it pushes us to work harder. to be better. to win. but sometimes even rivals realize they share a common goal. america's beverage companies have removed full-calorie soft drinks from schools, reducing beverage calories by 88%. together with schools, we're helping kids make more balanced choices every day. ♪

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welcome back. a little "busted." an update on a story from yesterday, a republican.

>> in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chick ton the doctor. they would say, i'll paint your house. that's the old days. >> well, sue lauden challenging democratic senator, harry reid, the democratic senate campaign committee. accusing him of injecting farm animals into the re-election bid. next, school districts urging parents not to take their kids to work on national take our daughters and sons to work day. that's today. in case you didn't know. they say keep them in the classroom. teachers warning that bringing kids to the office will disrupt their learning at a critical time of the year filled with high-stakes standardized testing in some parts of the country. add that to all the student absences stemming from the h1n1 virus and this particular time of the year becomes a very bad one, they say, for the kids do

play hooky. never mind spending quality time one day a year with your parents. or at least one of them. i say take them to work, show them all the things they can't learn in a book, it might help them. kudos in order for the illinois man who filed a lawsuit against the vatican and pope benedict. the lawsuit accuses the pope and senior vatican officials from failing to protect children from a wisconsin priest who molested 200 deaf boys. the plaintiff says he was one of the priest's victims and that the abuses occurred over several years including solicited sex in the confessional. the lawsuit also seeks the release of vease of vatican doc known sex abusers. after decades of abuse and no one in law enforcement doing a darn thing about it. my bet is this lawsuit finally gets the vatican's attention. we can only hope. still ahead, most democrats

would have you believe that breaking up is hard to do when it comes to the big banks who give them all that campaign cash. we'll talk to one of the few brave senators who said it's actually petty simple. i have a plan to do it, he says, he's even introduced the amendment. ted kaufmann in today's "town square." and in "hardball," the gop, the tea parties, auditing the fed. congressman ron paul, lots to talk about, that's what you'll do with chris matthews, coming up.

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the goal is do make certain that taxpayers are never again on the hook because a firm is deemed too big to fail.

>> the president today, diagnosing the disease that plagues our country -- too big do fail. but not offering a cure. that's the topic of today's "town square," a group of senate democrats introducing a bill that would shrink of nation's largest banks. bank of america, wells fargo and jp morgan chase, along with goldman sachs, citigroup and morgan stanley. it would also have an impact on companies like the parent of this network, general electric. the bill aims to close loopholes in an existing rule that says no single bank can hold more than 10% of our nation's deposits. it would also cap how much banks can borrow to finance their operations for speculation or lending, to an amount equal to 2% of the nation's gdp. 3% would be the cap for nonfinancial firms, like aig or general electric. joining us now, ted kaufmann, senator from the great state of delaware and one of the sponsors of the bill. senator, we talked to senator

sanders yesterday, senator coburn from the republican side of the aisle. senator lincoln this morning. lots of folks are expressing verbal support for what you're describing. do you actually think you can get it done? >> we're going to find out, dylan. we're getting to the krumplging time. this is where we're going to find out. we'll find out who's who and where everyone is. the bill is going to come up and we'll try to move it on monday and then offer the amendments. one of the problems is the senate is so incredibly busy with everything it's doing that a lot of my colleagues are focusing on this very, very complex area. so the ones i talk to are very promising, including the folks that you mentioned. but we'll see when we actually get down to it there's a series of amendments that i think will strengthen the bill. and make the bill much, much more likely that we will never again have too big to fail. >> it's clear that too big to fail is explicitly in the interest of the banks and in no one else's interests. if you want to get a separates

of how big it is. perhaps some of your colleagues who may be watching. of those six big banks i mentioned in 1995, 17% of gdp, they controlled in 2010. it's 63%. something else, we're lending the banks right now, at the current rate of 0.2%. we're giving them the money at 0.2%. the average credit card rate in this country is currently 17%. i'm telling you numbers that are not corroborated by our graphics package in order to hopefully confuse people. but with that said, too big to fail clearly works for the banks and doesn't work for anybody else. why is that hard for people to understand? >> well, i just think that we just came through the financial crisis. i don't know, you have to talk to people on the other side of this. i think people are concerned that you know, breaking up banks sounds like a big deal. but even alan greenspan, who has, he has admitted was clearly wrong in self-regulating the rest of it. he points out that breaking up standard oil was not that hard a

deal. the original case had it done in 30 days, i think they went to the supreme court, it was six months, standard oil came out even better than they were going in. remember the accounting firms, we said they couldn't be management consulting and also be accounting, we sflplit them . people are concerned about breaking up the banks. >> there's so much money that the giant banks make because of their unique advantage. the two-class system. is it because the two-class system allows them to take so much more money that they can basically have an overinfluence in politicians and really no one else stands a chance? >> well i think that's part of it. one of the interesting things is they have an incredible advantage over all the other banks in america. a study done of the certificates of deposits from the really, really big banks, they get higher interest rates than their fellow banks. but one of the things we need, dylan is for the other bankers to come forward and explain, we don't need these massive banks, we can compete and we can