you need to find a ball lantsz. enough austerity to support, to win the confidence of the markets, but not so much as to undermine the economy to the point where you're actually losing the effect of the austerity because you had such an adverse impact on growth. so i think don't think either answer is right. extreme austerity is not right. because that will undermine gdp and no austerity is not right because you will lose the confidence of the markets. by the way you say italy doesn't have large deficits, which is true. spain didn't have large debt to gdp ratios. let's talk about the federal reserve. this -- mr. volker. so let me ask you, how is the fed doing? >> oh, look, i think ben bernanke's done a good job. he came into an impossibly complex situation and took unprecedented actions which combined with t.a.r.p. and other activities have prevented us from going over an abyss. that's a little different from the question of where are we today and what do we do going forward. gdp for this year is still a slow recove