mr. kewilewis, thank you for appearing this morning. 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 docum