mistakes there but the scale of write-offs that jpmorgan made are nowhere near the scale of a city, marolt, ubs, morgan stanley and there was one reason why. guess what? they are not being enforced by capital now. you probably have more questions. thank you for coming along. [applause] >> gillian tett was named business journalist of the year for coverage of the market decline in 2008, she was also awarded the wincott prize for financial journalism in 2007. right now she runs a global market coverage for financial times newspaper. to find out more on the author please go to f t.com. the c-span 2 booktv civics bus is visiting libraries, bookstores, festivals and authors. here are some of the people and places we visited. >> we are with mark bauerlein, author of a "the dumbest generation". you also have a a title that says or don't trust anyone under 30. you put a lot of statistics in your book. a pull out the one statistic you like the most when you have to talk to groups about this particular book. >> i think one thing that happened was the speech i gave at the university of maryland a few

with the assurance that the american tax they payer would back up any of these toxic assets from marolt. and i will just ask one specific question about that. one of the assertions to the board was that the treasury and fed have confirmed they will provide assistance to the corporation to restore capital and protect the corporation against the adverse impact of the merrill lynch assets and he went on to say the corporation can rely on the fed and treasury to complete and deliver the promised support by january 20, the dates scheduled for the release of earnings by the corporation. in your recollection is that an accurate statement by mr. lewis? >> we did indicate that we would work with him to develop a transaction, to develop a package that would preserve the stability of this company may propose to do that by january 20 and that included-- >> and that included backing up the toxic assets? >> there were no specifics. there were different possible approaches in the events that apparently won't be consummated. >> what he was specifically referring to us the news that they were aware of t