to disclose those losses at merrill lynch.given the fragility of the financial markets at that time we were concerned about the potential for a strong adverse market reaction to the reports of significant losses at merrill lynch. if federal assistance is stabilizing these companies were to be effective the necessary facilities would have to be in place as of the disclosure date. dessauer planning with importantly influence by the company's plan disclosure schedule. but the decisions and responsibilities regarding public disclosure always remained as it should with the companies themselves. a related question is whether it there should have been earlier disclosure provided by the u.s. government to the bank of america. importantly there was no commitment on the part of the government regarding the size and structure of the transaction until very late in the process. hall do it indicated to bank of america in december that the government would provide assistance to keep the company from being to stabilize as it did then in cases

when merrill lynch recognized significant losses. the marle lynch acquisition also came with the promise of significant long-term rewards, that we were already

countrywide and merrill lynch. it does not appear to beny debate these were in the best interest of the financial system, the economy and the country. the failure of countrywide could have destabilized an already crippled market. merrill lynch could have caused havoc when assessing a government-style bailout. these acquisitions, those, were also in the best interest of bank of america and shareholders. certainly the merrill lynch acquisition in particular came with risk. some materialized in 2008. the merrill lynch acquisition also came with a promise of significant long-term rewards. rewards bank of america and shareholders are already beginning to reap. we put together an organization already producing substantial profits, not losses, for our company. understanding that fact is absolutely critical to understanding why we acquired merrill lynch. we really bought two businesses. the first is the world's most productive brokerage force. currently 14,000 financial advise advisers. top 100, top 1,000 and top 100 women

lynch: thank you, madam speaker. we yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 435 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to and without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. without objection, the title is amended. for what purpose does the gentleman from massachusetts rise? mr. lynch: madam speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 420. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 420, resolution celebrating the symbol of the united states flag and supporting the goals and ideals of flag day. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch, and the gentleman from utah, mr. chaffetz, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes t

lynch: thank you, mr. speaker. in closing, i just join with the gentleman from texas, mr. carter, for the purpose of supportinging this measure which will honor first lieutenant kyle west and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 2422 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from massachusetts rise? mr. lynch: mr. speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and pass the bill, h.r. 2470. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 2470, a bill to designate the facility of the united states postal service located at 19190 cochran boulevard, f. frnt as the lieutenant commander roadway h. boe

let me walk you through the decision to purchase merrill lynch. we made the decision in september of 2008. we did so because we saw the potential benefits i just described. we did so without any promise or expectation of governmental support. in-december i was advised merrill lynch raised forecasted losses and recontacted the federal reserve to inform them we had concerns about closing the transaction. as a matter of contract law, this can propel to consummate a deal. federal and treasury reserve asked tus to delay action and expressed significant concerns about the systemic consequences and the risk to bank of america. we explore government support. we both were aware the the system was in fragile condition and a collapse could hasten the crisis. bank of america concluded that proceeding with action with governmental support was the better course. this made sense for bank of america and shareholders. it made sense for the marks. i believe committed people with good intentions in the private sector and the government were desperately hard in late

angula does the letter, what's happening with merrill lynch. i think it's a reasonable question to say: when did you know this? if you didn't know until after october 3 what took you so long to figure it out? frankly two weeks of debate in this congress, you remember they sent us home for a few days, came back and we passed this. >> i'd be happy to answer that question. the drawback of the asset purchase plan as we discovered was that it took some time, probably some months, to put it into operation, and we thought perhaps that would be possible but the banking situation deteriorated quickly and by columbus day we had a global crisis and the only way to stop it from spread asking creating a huge problem was to inject capital to have guarantees and take the steps we took. this was the only way to do it as quickly as was needed given the way the situation changed so what xhain gd was the financial situation between october 3 and october 14 and we had no way to do the other approach because would just take too long. >> i have a few seconds and i'l

the bank of america, merrill lynch deal is a case in point. new e-mails we have obtained from the fed indicate that fed officials may have attempted to keep other agencies in the dark about what was going on. k-fed e-mail discusses not telling the office of the comptroller of the currency what is happening. others discuss how to minimize the amount of information given to the sec. in a remarkable exchange, fed officials note that an sec official can be counted on to be discrete. i am not going to prejudge the issues. at this point, we are not even close to finishing this investigation. bank of america ceo ken lewis gave us his story. now it is dead chairman bernanke's turn to give his side of the story. next, it will be former treasury secretary hank paulson to give his side. we need to get all of the facts out on the table before we are in a position to say what happened and when it happened. but, i promise you this. we will follow this investigation wherever the road leads, and we will do our best to make sure the facts get out on the table,

curl fwaled to unless $12 billion of merrill lynch's losses, it is wise to have mr. curl be your chief risk officer? and did you approve of that decision? >> mr. curl didn't miss the instruments which caused the loss. what happened is we did not anticipate the meltdown of such a significant proportions in the fourth quarter. so we -- he identified everything properly. no one thought things would get as bad as it did in the fourth quarter. and i made that decision. >> you made the decision that mr. kerl should go ahead and become the coo. >> i made the decision for him to become the cro. >> let me announce that we have two votes on the floor and that we will recess for until 12:30, we will be returning at 12:30 and of course continue the questions. so the committee is in recess until 12:30. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> the meeting will resume. may i remind the witness he is still under oath. we will have five minutes from the gentleman from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. th

long-term to significant losses in revenue or revenue production are grounds and of course merrill lynch has proved to be a profitable acquisition for bankamerica. why not negotiate a better price, that wasn't the issue that lewis raised. he was talking about breaking off the merger but i think that the walls of be very dangerous because the markets would have been faced with the uncertainty of whether the deal was going to go through merrill lynch would probably not be able to survive absent the support of bank of america said there would have been immediate problem with merrill lynch which would have created broad problems in the financial market. >> even if they threatened to do that in the context of negotiating? >> well, you can't negotiate anything unless you are willing to go through with your threat. and so therefore there would have to be a probability in the mind of market participants that in fact bank of america wouldn't go through. >> you think that would be considered a plus? >> it has been stabilizing as well, yes. >> and in consummating though, the merger as it was origin

lewis threatened to back out of the merrill lynch deal merrill lynch deal and to what extent were you concerned and did you have conversations with secretary paulson that that would sort of unravel a lot of things therefore we had to accelerate the t.a.r.p. funding for b of a and did you take it or did secretary paulson take it as an implied threat if i don't get that line going to go public and let everybody know we are pulling out of the deal? >> when i first heard about it on december 17th i took that as a possibility i was concerned about but subsequently i thought as i said mr. lewis was genuinely uncertain how to proceed. >> mr. chairman, my time is up i want to say on the record while some one this narrative to be this poor ceo of a moderately sized bank with the boot of government on his neck forcing him to do things he didn't want to do i believe the narrative lends itself to a corporation gaining the system because he could recognize an opportunity when he saw and it was 15 to 20 million-dollar opportunity. my time is up. i thank the chair. >> i now yield five minutes to the

especially coming after shareholders vote to purchase merrill lynch. i can understand you telling the fed and secretary paulson you were thinking of backing out of of the deal. i can understand that. that was based upon your expertise and your experience. i cannot understand the agreement you reported that you made with treasury and the fed which they both denied to disclose the $12 billion loss. if the loss made this horrible business deal to acquire merrill lynch, why did you still do it? and i know you've told us over and over again. but let's be frank. i mean, and i'm wondering, how do you determine what is -- you must disclose. we have shareholders here who are concerned. you're about to go into a deal with a company that is worse off than is made to believe. and it just seems to me that and a person with your experience, there are a lot of people in this situation and i don't care what paulson may have said, what bernanke may have said. they would have said, the tell with you, i'm going to stand on principle and my principles tell me there's a ma

should have been aware of the problems at merrill lynch earlier. perhaps as early as mid november and not caught by surprise. that could cause other problems for him around the disclosures bank of america made for the shareholder vote. mr. lewis, i will ask you a series of simple questions, and if you are not forthcoming, i am not going to have any choice but to interrupt you. is it not true that bank of america exam and merrill lynch's book of business before signing a merger agreement and then received detailed financial reports every week from merrill lynch? after signing the merger agreement on september 15? >> that is true. >> is it not true that the merrill losses in mid december that motivated you to go to the government were not the largest week to week losses use all? in fact, was not the experience in mid november larger than the one in the december? week-to-week loss experienced in mid-november larger than the one in mid-december. >> the losses that were. >> the losses were partly based on losses in november. i'm not saying the losses in

and when merrill lynch intends to file. if i get a sense merrill lynch is leaning towards an early january filing i will try to steer him towards a later filing. that is so inconsistent with the comment you made. do you see they are consistent or is their inconsistency? >> i didn't see that e-mail exchange until after i had written my letter but having looked at the exchange field the subsequent e-mails that in fact merrill lynch had taken the disclosure decision and mr. angelou did not attempt to make them change it so in the event he did not make any attempt to affect the disclosure. >> bup the intent is still there? >> but he did not take the action. >> do you feel in any way shape or form that you adversely affected or threatened mr. lewis or the board of directors? >> i do not. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the gentleman from virginia, mr. connolly. >> welcome, chairman bernanke. mr. bernanke, i guess i come at this differently than my friend from utah. i guess i'm interested who was threatening whom. what

the government had given you 25 billion before you approached it about merrill lynch. if the government believed all of that about you and your management team, were you surprised that the fed arranged for you to receive consider bl additional financial support in january, does that surprise you? >> we received 15 billion, not 25 billion from the original t.a.r.p. package. it did not surprise me they were willing to give us more. we talked about coming to a solution to get the merrill lynch deal done. >> there was a financial crisis and they thought it was necessary -- unanimous consent for two more minutes. >> without objection. >> there was a financial crisis and they thought it was necessary for the system, for the deal to go through. if there's one thing about your record that's clear, you have experienced negotiating deals. what do you believe your leverage with the government was at the end of 2008? >> the only leverage i would say we had was that two honorable people had given me their word they would try their best to find a solution. >> isn't it true it was be

you say in your background is on september 15, bank of america announced an agreement with merrill lynch. i did not play a role in arranging this transaction and no federal reserve assistance was promised or provided in connection with with that agreement. is that accurate, yes or no? >> yes. >> all right. oops well then you go on to talk about all the things you did do. i'm confused. let's talk about this whole situation with one of the things you did. this is your statement. it says in responding to the bank of america and these discussions, i, talking about yourself, expressed concern that invoking the m.a.c. would entail significant risks and then you go on to talk about that. we had mr. lewis who testified before us that he's been an experienced guy in this whole banking stuff for many, many years, he took this m.a.c. situation very seriously. and then paulson comes along and you come along, according to your own testimony, and you say, you know, i don't think that you're right on this. but basically it sounds like you did not believe in the competence of mr. lewis. i'm just finding

lynch: thank you. madam speaker, on behalf of the house committee on oversight and government reform, i'm pleased to present house resolution 356 for consideration. this legislation expressing our support -- expresses our support for the designation of february 8, 2010, as boy scouts america day. in recognition of the youth organization'sup coming 100th anniversary. house resolution 356 was introduced by my colleague, representative ralph hall, of texas on april 23, 2009, and favorably reported out of the oversight committee on may 6, 2009. additionally house resolution 356 enjoys the support of over 70 members of the congress. madam speaker, the boy scouts of america was incorporated by chicago publisher william dickson boys on february 8, 1910. with president william howard taft named to serve as the organization's first honorary president. pursuant to its stated purpose, the newly founded boy scouts of america sought to educate america's youth in, quote, patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kin d

lynching doesn't stop but lynchings go down. it's redefined.she has defended blacks pretty successfully.fñ and yet i remember coming across in her day book that she wrote some notes and in 1930 -- this is a year before her death, at this point she's running for a state senate seat in illinois. a year before her death she writes about going to a negro history week meeting. and with her daughter. and she says -- and they are discussing a book by carter woodson who is known as the father of negro history and who she knew. and she says i walked away disappointed that my name wasn't mentioned as a contributor to the lynching -- the anti-lynching campaign and i felt this was just extraordinary. this was more than racism and sexism and then i looked further and she was really left out of history by many of her peers and by many of her progressive peers. if you look at the books of jane adams, if you look at the books of dubois, of mary terrell, i'm talking about black women reformers, white women reformers, she's left out. so this is a whole other roa

lewis recklessly agreed to pay too much for merrill lynch so that the federal government felt backed into a corner when faced with the prospect of louis backing out of the merrill deal and of course we experienced the inevitable bankruptcy of merrill lynch. could you respond to this? >> yes, sir. today i think has been productive in terms of transparency and more information about what happened. clearly there was a very difficult period and many complex problems of the that were being addressed but as i indicated i believe that we solve this problem without an any way taking steps that were either beyond oh-la-la or on ethical. and i believe we did the right thing in order to stabilize both companies or the financial system. >> thank you very much and thank you, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman's time is expired. congresswoman norton for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and we do appreciate the transparency your try e and to bring to this transaction. i am not inclined to second-guess the judgment of people in the midst trying to deal with the problem rising, problem after prob

lynch: the way this has been scored by c.b.o. its that the salaries paid to the employees already, the costs and/or savings, recognizing the c.b.o. estimate that has been cited here that by forcing federal employees to take leave without pay, they realize a savings from that, but there's no new debt acquired here. what the savings here that c.b.o. is recognizing is is the fact that they have budgeted for these salaries and people take a certain amount of time off without pay and that realizes a gain in the budget that is recognized in the c.b.o. budget. i yield two minutes to the the gentleman from virginia, mr. moran. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. moran: i thank my very good friend from massachusetts, mr. lynch, and mrs. maloney and my colleagues who have fought hard for this bill. a couple of reasons why i am a proud co-sponsor of this legislation. one is that we are in the midst of an economic crisis in this nation. and who do we turn to? we turn to the federal work force to reset our economy, to put our nation's

>> sir, are you speaking to the lehman or merrill lynch? >> to the requirement of your filing for disclosure and notice to your shareholders when this was pending. you didn't necessarily precisely follow what could be considered a notice requirement. >> i think clarity is always better. if it were left up to me i would go to clarity first. >> so what you recommend we do, go into that area and declare more disclosure as to what's happening? should we put you on the net or what? >> i don't know. i'm not sure i'm following you in terms of the disclosure that you're speaking to. i'm a little shaky on your question, frankly. >> okay, do you know of any disclosure, do you have any feelings s of any disclosures, there anything that we could create in the form of our regulatory requirements on acquisitions or mergers? >> it would be difficult because you don't have an event many times because you're still looking at alternatives and negotiating and lehman or the merrill lynch bank of america situation, then it could be well into the morning before

lynch. madam speaker, i thought we had identified an issue where we can count on the support of the minority party. after enduring decades of speeches about family values, here wer poised to take action. h.r. 626, the paid parental leave act would allow federally employed mothers and fathers to spend time with their newborn children without sacrificing their income. the minority party objects to such a notion. and the committee on oversight and reform, the minority proposed during markup to prohibit paid parental leave from being used for foster children. i can't even speculate about what the origins of that towards foster children might be but i'm reminded about a speech made in this chamber made not so long by the former republican leader, tom delay. he spoke about the plight of foster children and implored congress to quote, listen to the stories of these children and the stories they tell. study the broken system we have created for them and help them, for god's sake help them, unquote.

so, let me just ask you, at that time or at this time, did you believe that merrill lynch was too big to fail? >> i thought it very likely that if merrill lynch failed, it was after robbing and-- the lehman brothers and it would create very serious problem in the financial markets, i did. >> as a manager, he pretty well filled merrill lynch needed to be addressed one way or the other to keep it from going under. >> i thought letting it failed would be, pose a serious risk although it was not clear we could that prevented it from failing. >> okay, now, i saw that committee's statement here and it is in the record, that when someone said, did you in polk a threat or something else, that they invoked the mac there would be repercussions to management. and, we can pull up the record. i am almost sure you said no, i didn't say it that way but i did indicate that if they invoke the mac and there was, what was that? they needed assistance afterwards, that there was this created situation where they needed assistance then there would be problems. and, the clarification there was the fact that

it's not until 1886, however, the number of blacks lynched exceed the number of whites lynched. coming at precisely the time when blacks are making such huge advances. i mean, just a generation from slavery making huge advances because this was the people who believed that citizenship rights had to bevearned. and they did so. literacy, you know, drops dramatically so much so that 200 black newspapers are being published every week by the 1880s. this is when the churches develop. this is when all the social institutions begin to develop. and so it's a mystery to many blacks as well particularly of why is lynching increasing at this very moment when blacks seem to be fulfilling the social contract of this great idea of american progress which is almost evangelical idea in this period of time? and so it is wells really who figures it out and figures out that there's another way to think about protest, which blacks are often -- the black elite are very reluctant to do in this period of time. they had terrible experience during reconstruction, of course. and they're very internal at

when bank of america urged its shareholders to approve the acquisition of merrill lynch, there was no public disclosure of any problems with the transaction. having a deposition taken by the new york attorney general, mr. lewis testified that just nine days after the shareholder vote, he discovered a $12 billion loss at merrill lynch. mr. lewis said he told treasury secretary hank paulson that he was strongly considering backing out of the deal. according to mr. lewis, poles and ultimately told him that if he did not go through with the acquisition, he and the board would be fired. however, internal e-mail is we have obtained say they were very skeptical about mr. lewis's motives about backing out. federal chairman ben bernanke fought louis was using the merrill losses as a bargaining chip to obtain federal funds. other e-mail's revealed that federal analysts found a suspect that mr. lewis claimed to be surprised by the rapid growth of merrill lynch posted losses giving the clear signs in the dead. they noted that at a minimum, it calls into question the due diligence process. bankame

lynch of massachusetts. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 474, the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch, and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. lynch: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank mr. thompson, the chair of the homeland security committee, for his great work on this bill. specifically this amendment that i have offered would address a difficult situation that is faced by our transit security officers, especially those on the mexican border, but in every port of entry in the united states. we have about 50,000 of these officers that actually come in contact, physically wanding and screening travelers. as you may remember after the outbreak of h 1. n 1 virus -- h1n1 i virus the outbreak was in mexico city. the officers we put on the border, especially in laredo, texas, and other heavily affected states, were not allowed, they were not allowed to wear asks, to wear gloves, or to use hand sanitizer as they proceeded to

lynch. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just -- as someone who voted against the t.a.r.p., i just want to comment on your kind remarks in saying that it was threw the wisdom of congress we passed the t.a.r.p. bill. number one, as you may remember, t.a.r.p. was presented to us as a way to purchase toxic mortgages, never used for that. so what we voted for was never put into action. number two, several weeks after we did the t.a.r.p., we also passed a t.a.r.p. corrections bill, a 400-page bill we passed to correct all the mistakes we made in t.a.r.p. so i'm not so sure of the wisdom of congress is necessarily accurately as described in that statement. i do want to say i agree with chairman kanjorsky about the context you took all this action, sky was falling, very difficult time but i do want to say the reason we are going over this chronology is because we have granted the fed enormous independence and there is sometimes a tension between the taxpayer interest and the power of the fed and the independence of the fed. that'

as you can tell, there are serious questions about how much you knew about merrill lynch's conditions and the condition of bank of america that you did or did not share with your shareholders. i would like to cast a wider lens on the pattern of bank of america, and perhaps other institutions in our country that some have dubbed carney capitalism that has led our nation to the press does it now faces. on august 20, 2007, the federal reserve reply to a bank of america request to waive banking regulation that limited the amount that federally insured banks can lend to related brokerage companies to 10% of bank capital. 10% of bank capital. until that point, banking regulation was that banks with federally insured deposits should not be put at risk by brokerage activity. four months after that waiver was provided to bank of america, bank of america bought countrywide. which has proven to be the worst subprime lender in our nation and i would like to place in the record a report that documents that. and the question that i have is, who headed bank of america at the time the request was mad

considered the potential for systemic risk when you approve the merger of bank of america merrill lynch which only weeks later is too big to fail. now, chairman bernanke, did you really believe ken lewis's was a bargaining chip as you stated in an e-mail december 2008? >> i thought initially it might be. >> did his use of a bargaining chip help him obtain a deal he put into received had he asked for assistance from the government? >> as i said in the later e-mail after listening to him and having more discussions i came to the conclusion he was uncertain about what to do. we provided advice which he ultimately took and we took steps to prevent the destabilization of his company in the financial system. >> mr. chairman i ask for one more minute. >> i yield the chairman one additional minute. >> let me direct your attention to hand written note from your first meeting on december 17, 2008. you reported restated the downside 50 billion doesn't sound big for bank of america. the 50 billion refers to aig merrill assets. the record clearly shows you did believe there would be systemic consequ

lynch. we have, i think, a general obligation to deal with the issue of the refugees as a consequence of these conflicts both in iraq and in afghanistan. but we have a particularly strong duty to deal with the status of people who were displaced or objects were persecution or retribution or retaliation because those individuals helped either our military or our diplomats or our a.i.d. people in terms of the conflict in either one of those countries. this is an issue that i personally was very involved with in the last couple of years. the gentleman's amendment, i think, helps to spur us to deal with some of the problems in the program now and to do more in this regard and it's certainly an amendment that if it is passed, i would want to see in the final legislation and urge its adoption. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the question now occurs on the amendment offered by the gentleman from massachusetts. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the

lynch. >> thank you, i want to thank chairman ckucinich as well. thank you as well, mr. lewis, for coming before the committee. let me go back to a point that mr. cummings and also mr. kucinich raised earlier. mr. kucinich seemed to be hung up on the fact of when there was a significant indicator that merrill lynch was in rapid decline. rather than focus on november of '08. we can go all the way back to fall of '07 when they mounsed an almost $8 billion loss and mr. o neil was forced into retirement. there's a long history of decline here, all be it it accelerated to some degree around the time of your purchase. but there was significant evidence that they had overloaded with collateral debt obligations and other complex derivatives and they were in pretty tough straits for a while. isn't that true? >> yes,sir, it is true. >> let me a you, there's a couple of e-mails and unfortunately they are very small up there. let me try to help you. one is from chairman bernanke to a selection of the board of reserve governors. and this is december 21st, 2008, around the time that y

members of the armed forces were lynched in the country they had defended following both world war i and world war ii, returning soldiers were lynched, many while still wearing their military uniforms. there would be no new respect for these brave african-americans who had fought for our country. only the old order of injustice. the senate passed the resolution apologizing for lynching in an attempt to acknowledge the senate's past failure to address the prevalence of those despicable acts and to allow for some national healing. it is my hope that the slavery apology resolution before us can serve a similar purpose. we're fortunate to live in a time that is not blighted by slavery in this country or segregation under the law. but we live with the legacy of the practice of slavery, and it is our responsibility and our duty to continue to examine that history in order to improve the present and the future. this apology is part of carrying out that responsibility. and doing so in the presence of visitors who are descendants of slaves adds to the meaning of our action. i yield the floor

lynch: thank you, madam speaker. i want to address a couple of points that -- well a single point made by a number of speakers on the other side who i have great respect for, the gentleman from texas earlier and now the gentleman from california. there's a drum beat of justification that seems to be grounded in the fact that the economy is not in good shape right now. that's a fact. in my state, in my district as well as all across america. but before we accept the argument that this is why it's being opposed, this bill is being opposed at this time, i want to give a brief history. this bill has been presented for 15 years, this bill has been presented for 15 years. before this body. in 2008, when a majority of the republicans opposed this important benefit, the unemployment then was 5.6%. pretty good. during the 109th congress, when the republicans refused to bring this bill to the floor, the unemployment rate was never the unemployment rate was never higher than 5.4%.

at merrill lynch i contributed to strengthening the governance practices in the 1990s. since leaving merrill lynch a decade ago i've led two other major financial institutions through transitions necessary for their long-term success. in 2002 i became chairman and ceo of tiaa-creff, a leading retirement and asset management service. we adapted t ed ed the company changing climates. as a result, tiaa-cref is one of very few financial companies that carry aaa ratings. and during my tenure, the company became the first company in the fortune 100 to allow its stakeholders an advisory role on executive compensation. in september of 2008 i was named ceo of the federal national mortgage association, as that company was placed into government conservatorship. the crisis that devastated fannie mae's liquidity and capital base also threatened millions of american homeowners with foreclosure. new management had to shift the company's focus from maximizing profit and market share to helping hard-pressed american families stay in their homes. as a result fannie mae is the agent for

at merrill lynch been a t.a.r.p. recipient at the time it would not have been permitted other the law but more generally and again our view is very much to try and have a greater transparency on the practices, greater independence and we feel very much that these types of practices when brought to light that the transparency is often decisive. so when people say for example stay on pay is non-binding, i don't think that's the way it worked, in fact,. i think that is very troubling for a company to raise a negative vote in those areas and that you want to take that type of public risk. >> any other comments on this issue? >> so madam congresswoman, the one issue i would add to the gene has said it is it is important when an organization has not performed well that bonuses be adjusted for that. one of the principles that we think is very important and the federal reserve will incorporate in its guidance going for it is that the compensation should be risks sensitive. it should reward good performance but then when perf

what was the difference between what moral lynch-- merrill lynch did? >> j.p.morgan used aig a bit but not that much parley because they had internal limits, so yes back in 1988 to cut the first-ever deal, the first time aig discovered was that in 1998 when they said it that this wacky way, are you interested? he said yes, bring it down because they spotted coming to to regulus nouri arbitrae as they basically do whatever they wanted and-- [inaudible] so, yes, j.p. morgan did deal with aig quite a bit at the very beginning, and yes it kept on dealing with them throughout the decade. far, far less. >> [inaudible] >> and not to the skillet many of its competitors in the concede that from the figures. to look at the break down, it is pretty stark. j.p. morgan is not even up there in the top half-dozen. you can see the breakdown of who have benefited from the rest cooper guy think j.p. morgan was somewhere around ten or 11 but i can get the figures to you if you want. >> but,. >> they thought they monolith in session was nets. one of fastening things about telling

wells and the campaign against lynching was called the best book of the year with "the washington post" did "chicago tribune" although a final choice for the critics both juries award i am happy to report as of 9:30 p.m. it is the winner for the "l.a. times" [applause] she also holds the chair at the african-american studies at the college board also urge journalist who has been published in the near times, "washington post" broke among others. robert roper we are here to talk about biography related topics of most of his publish books are novels or story collections some of the titles include mexico days, he has written for magazines such as national geographic, "the new york times", "chicago tribune" and also of the losses angeles times. it publishes essays in the american scholar and teaches writing of the film department at johns hopkins. he has just written a new novel and on work of a second in search of another biographical historical subjects. his most recent book entitled "now the drum of war: walt whitman and his brothers in the civil war". final 8014 who needs no introductio

talking about all of the anti-lynching campaign is as successful she has defended blacks pretty successfully and the debt to remember coming across her book where sheik wrote notes and one year before her death she is running for a state senate seat and illinois, one year before she talks about going to a negro history week miti with her dog -- daughter and discuss a a book by the father of negro history and she knew him. and she says i walked away disappointed that my name was not mentioned in the contributors as the and 17 campaign. this is extraordinary more than racism or sexism broke then i look for other -- brothers she was left out of history by many of her peers and progressive fears. phillip at the books of jane addams, e.b. dubois, talking about black women, reformers, she is left out. this is a whole other issue. was it significant this campaign was fought? yes. all the evidence is i came to the conclusion that excuse me i have our dues that are killing me. [laughter] she is so transgressive even among reformers. and so i have never time, largely because of her class ideas. there

you will press the merrill lynch. regardless of how many billions of dollars they owe because if it goes down like lehman brothers the whole house of cards may collapse. that is the backdrop we're dealing with now the obama administration is throwing trillions of dollars that it but unfortunately the first rescue package was a payoff to democratic constituencies and some of the money that has been spent has been nothing short of ludicrous. they are burdening the taxpayer with a huge tax burden and the amount of taxes that will have to be spent it is horrible to contemplate. how deepen the whole we are going and how much money is being spent. now they say we take on health care which will be trained one and 1.5 trillion dollars to assume health-care that meant the united states government will crowd out the private insurance company then they will be responsible for all health-care for everybody in the nation and. it will be a hideous mess. so this is the book "right on the money" that is the backdrop with which we hav