swenson? >> i'm not aware of that term. what is alleged, what happened was people would take advantage of the fact that rating agencies went with an average. so they would go out and pick up fico scores of 550, which are almost guaranteed to fail mix them in with fico scores of 650 so they came out with about 615 and sold them. mr. sparks, you never heard of anything like that at goldman sac sachs, right? >> well, i know clients when we're putting deals together the deal teams would work very hard to put together, you know, whatever the loan package was and work with ratings to come up with what the capital structure would be, that includes credit enhancement. so, i don't recall somebody coming to me saying, hey, we're going to barbell this, but there would be a mix of collateral. >> let me ask you a similar question. how about gaming the rating agency. people sitting around trying to figure out what can we get through here, through the rating agencies -- >> ne. >> as far as gaming, no. as far

birnbaum and then swenson. afterwards, we will have questions. please proceed. >> my name is den sparks, and from late 2006 until mid 2008, i was head of the mortgage department at goldmansachs. the three men who are with me today all reported up to me during that time. i joined goldmansachs in 1989 as an analyst after graduating from college. my intention was to stay for two years, and i ended up staying for 19 years. i would not have stayed if the people i work with did not have high ethical standards. the culture at goldmansachs was wanted which this is expected. the business of the mortgage -- was one in which this is expected. the business of the mortgage department involves underwriting and trading of mortgage-backed properties including loans, securities, and derivatives. all these activities involve clients and risk. the business was competitive, and goldman participated without a significant residential mortgage origination platform. i know the subcommittee is focusing on the events of late 2006 end 2007, so i will as well. near the end

. >> brown: michael swenson, currently a managing director at goldman, was asked by arkansas senator mark pryor if goldman contributed to the larger collapse. >> i do not think that we did anything wrong. there's things that we wish we could have done better in hindsight, but at the times we made the decisions, i didn't think we did anything wrong. >> my sense is that people feel like you are betting with other people's money and other people's future because, for example, in the real estate area, someone gets a mortgage and that gets sold, and that gets chopped up and bounced around, and instead of wall street, it looks more like las vegas. >> brown: when it was his turn, republican john ensign of nevada took issue with pryor's comparison. >> senator pryor, i think most people in las vegas would take offense at having wall street compared to las vegas, because in las vegas, actually, people know that the odds are against them; they play anyway. on wall street, they manipulate the odds while you're playing the game. >> brown: after five hours, a second panel took its turn at the witn