. >> let me just turn for a moment to the voelker rule as well. and its implication regarding what is happening around the world. let me just add, too, i think your policy of the fire wall to kind of keep us going on in greece in greece. but let me just ask you how spain doing? is this fire wall -- i think spain's situation is probably the next most egregious. is this fire wall doing a good job from getting a spread there? >> well, generally the fire walls which are european funding to stand as a backstop in case there is contagious. more needs to be done there. and the europeans, i'm sure, will be looking at that and trying to strengthen the fire walls. so i think there is more to be done there. but spain on one hand -- well, spain, i think, has done -- is doing better. they've made progress in terms of their fiscal consolidation. they're taking actions to strengthen their banking system. and their cost of credit has gone down probably in part because of fundamentals but also in part because of the ecb's long term refinancing operations. >> now l

voelker speaking out at well.bout this milestone, gary, with regard to apple. by the way. >> good to see you again. >> it's been a while. good to see you. let's touch on what's happening with the s&p here. if you look at the european credits. in fact, the european financials, the credit side trading at intraday lows. what stands out in my mind is something you and i talked about, i think it's probably talk about three months ago, and it continues to be the overarching theme, which is if you are a professional active portfolio manager and you don't own this stock, you don't even have -- the orchl question you're ever asked is why don't you own apple. again, as long as this continues to be such an important component within the index, if you don't own it, it's essentially being short the stock every day, and that will continue. >> is it masking broader trouble in the market, slowing growth rates in sector that is donnell include apple? is it dangerous, because it's skewing the averages so much? >> it's a good questi

i'll have a question for the record for you on the voelker rule and applying it to international situations. and my first question is about the society for worldwide interbank financial telecommunications, swift. i'm the lead democrat here in the house on a bill designed to in effect expel iran from swift. do you agree that allowing iranian access to twist undermines u.s. national security objectives and our objectives in preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation? and do you think that we can successfully exclude all iranian banks from swift rather than just those iranian bank that's are under eu sanction? >> well, i shouldn't make national security judgments. and i won't. but on swift, i will say that the fed is one of the supervisors of swift. we work with the bank of belgium and other international supervisors. and my understanding is that it would be feasible. and it's a very important system because it's part of almost every international money transfer that occurs. so, you know, it's -- it could be a real problem for iranian financial markets or fina

i'll simply quote paul voelker who said in the late 1970s, central bankers willing to tolerate a little more inflation usually end up getting a whole lot more than they expected. my concern is that this appears less to be an inflation targeting statement than an inflation equivocation statement because we're now targeting deviations. and that's the concern. when this statement was released, we saw a build-up of commodity prices, even though i think you said fairly recently that demand is down. therefore, commodity prices should be low. so my basic question is, if this is our interpretation and we have a spike in commodity prices that occurred after the statement released, is that not the market's interpretation of this statement? >> mr. chairman, first of all, as we say, the two sides of are generally complimentary. we agree that low inflation, low stable inflation is good for the economy and good for growth, good for employment. we think most of the time that there's a complimentary relationship between those two. our actual -- the actual

. >> i guess you're not taking much solace for instance in the comments how the voelker rule could beit will be tough to be positive. we're hopeful to get some flexibility. we don't want to penalize banks at the expense of penalizing the markets, but shrinking revenues and buying back stock is tough over the near term, but we would expect -- >> david, you mentioned multiples, and when i was talking to fred cannon about a week and a half ago he mentioned that earnings estimates for the banks in general must come down for 2012, or at least in the process of coming down. with that said, david, what does that imply? terms of downside risk. >> i think that's why we're a bit cautious with names like citigroup and b of a. we do remain below consensus. however, if you look at names like jpmorgan and goldman sachs, for instance, we're actually in line with the street. those multiples seem more compelling than some of the cheap balance sheet valuations. >> so jpmorgan, for instance, david, would in your view fare better as the rest of the financial sector deals with compressing earnings estimat