joining us now is alexandra skaggs and our gadfly columnist, lisa abramowicz.lowing liquid -- growing liquidity problem in the treasury markets? lisa: she did such great reporting. betty: you are both bond experts here. [laughter] lisa: i would say -- why would affectew representations treasuries? the lack of liquidity in the markets has been attributed to banks pulling back balance sheets and not giving as much to riskier assets. treasuries are not risky, so why would they even be caught up in this? banks used to have big portfolios to offset risks in other parts of their portfolio as their overall balance sheet shrinks. then there's less of a reason to own those treasuries. that's one reason. it's also less profitable. why would you do it? if you only have a certain amount of balance sheet to use you would deploy it where you could make money, whereas with treasuries it's just not looking as good. betty: is this all part of the financial market turmoil that we've seen? or is something else at play? i think it's being exacerbated by the turmoil but it is showi