whalen, senior vice president and managing director of institutional risk analytics and mr. wardwith, so life? soleil-ward transportation research. thank you both for being here today. i asked you for your opening remarks, and as i have with earlier witnesses, please hold into five minutes. will put your entire written statement in the record. mr. whalen, how about we start with you? >> thank you, madam chairman, members of the panel. i am going to take advantage of the fact that i get to go last and make some observations on what i've heard this morning since you have my written comments. first, we have the fascinating dichotomy of on the one hand, a captive financing vehicle. and on the other hand a bank holding company. i worked at the federal reserve bank in new york and the banks supervision area. and i very firmly with the criteria for approval under section 12 for bank holding companies. the thing that troubles me is in effect if you want to look at the big picture, we are essential using fdic deposits as a replacement for commercial paper. that's really what is going on h

lord goldsmith, sir michael ward, mr. brownell, and look at what they told us about the balance of legal opinion on the subject. lord goldsmith obviously was not in a position in which he had wide support within the international legal fraternity within the government. indeed, any i think. in the u.k. when he made his judgment. but he is a lawyer of the higher eminence and accept his authority even if they didn't agree with the. so that was a final decision. >> all i'm trying to say is when you go back and read 1441, it's pretty obvious that you can make a decent case for this. >> well, let me pass judgment on the. i am asking questions i don't have opinions today on a. i would just like to ask one final question i think to wrap up this legal chapter. this is really, you in the position ultimately where you had to give this determination. you have to go through the action, lord goldsmith was preparing with the assistance of christopher greenwood for the possibility of legal challenge. he knew that he had taken the decisio

mr. michael ward's, and i don't think it is liable as a stand-alone and would not make a very attractive i ipo. the earlier witness alluded to the credit card model lines. they have all been bought. the only one left is cap one. they tapped into regional banks so they want get bought. they had to diversify as well. just being a credit card company was not sufficient. >> you made reference to picking up on some of the question i had to the treasury panel as to whether they were exploring a combining of gm and gmac integrating back into gm. you seem supportive of that. >> it is the only way to get full value back to us as taxpayers. general motors will come out a substantial discount to ford. if you put numbers on paper, ebitda doesn't get you a lot when you are six times on a p/e basis it will take decades to get the investment back. if you enhance it by putting it back in, it stands at a much better footing relative to ford and toyota, the two principal competitors. there was a question earlier, why did they get into the rescap business? it was the goal of the manufacturers when they are