ideally i would like to see congress repealed the volcker rule. failing that, congress should send a clear signal that regulators are to implement the rule in a modest and relatively simple fashion that focuses on only stopping those activities that very clearly violate the rule. thank you again for the opportunity to testify. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. our next speaker is alexander marx of global bond trading. >> thank you. ranking members maloney and waters and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. my name is alexander marx. i'm head of global bond trading for fidelity investments. i responsible for the bond trading that support the investment products for which fidelity serves as investment adviser including fidelity's mutual-fund. fidelity is one of the world's leading providers of financial services with assets, including managed assets of $1.6 trillion? fidelity provides investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, benefits outsourcing and other financial products and se

thank you for inviting me to speak today on the volcker rule. i'm glad to join my fellow regulators in testifying today. following the congress mandate of last week the cftc proposed rules consistent with the joint rule proposed in october by fellow regulators. the commission's proposal also included additional questions. i know there were 1400 but we added a few additional comments on whether certain provisions of the common rule or even applicable to the cftc restaurants which are part of the banking entity. the dodd-frank act as we've all been talking about amended the holding company act that prohibits banking entities from engaging in proprietary trading. yet also permitted certain activities, the one that has the most talk here is about market making and risk mitigated hedging. civil law requires the banking entities with significant trading activities to have policies and procedures in place to identify and prevent violations of this statutory provision on proprietary trading. the dodd-frank act directs the cftc for the rules implementing

ideally, i would like to see congress repealed the volcker rule. they are that, congress should send a clear signal that regulators are to implement the rule in a modest and relatively simple fashion that focuses on only stopping those activities that very clearly violate the rule. thank you again for the opportunity to testify. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. elliott. our next speaker is alexander marx competitive global trading fidelity investments. >> thank you. ranking members, members of the subcommittees, thank you for your opportunity to testify today. my name is alex mercer might have global bond trading for fidelity investments. initial am responsible for the bond trading that supports the investment products for which fidelity serves as investment adviser including fidelity's mutual fund. fidel is one of the worst leading providers of financial services with assets under administration of $3.4 trillion come including manage assets of more than $1.5 trillion. fidelity provides the best investment measure, retirement plan

at the same time volcker rule shredded by republicans read another headline if we could bring that up and it pointed out again that the volcker rule asked the government to distinguish between banned proprietary trading and legitimate market making so what does that mean exactly what is proprietary trading let's see the definition is here it is when a firm trades for direct game instead of commission dollars essentially the firm has decided to profit from the market rather than from commissions from processing trades so a bank is betting for its own account as opposed to executing trades on behalf of its customers that's really the distinction so why is banning banks receive government backstops from trading their own account part of the volcker rule well it's supposed to reel in risk at some of those too big to fail banks that were you know reasons for the financial crisis now the idea is banks have been using their taxpayer provided safety net deposit insurance to make riskier bets the ban on proprietary trading would allow banks still to continue short term trades for market making

it's part of the volcker rule which is part of dog frank and surprise surprise lobbyists and big bank exacts have come out against it will break down what's really at stake here and u.s. president barack obama has been pushing in-sourcing with his jobs council just as a new report comes out showing at least one of the very corporations represented on that council are outsourcing more jobs and r. and d. to asia so what is the deal we're going to hash it out let's get to days capital account. so greece faces get another very large this time around fourteen point five billion euro bond repayment on march twentieth the problem is greece can't afford to service this debt and has been desperately trying to forge some sort of agreement with its creditors that would allow further write downs and an extension of repayment times so basically let me break this down the greek government is desperately trying to avoid default trying to negotiate with its creditors to see a deal on debt relief that is going on right now that is the big news but what is really new here the seriousness of the situati

. >> what is the volcker rule and white publicans hate it?rule tries to stop trading for the house with customerer deposits that are injured by the government. the proboblem with this is the government was to ensurere that the banks keep doing market making the kinds of trades that alwed our markets to function smoothly. figuring o out h t to stop them trading themselves is so touough. >> on top of that theanks have huge resources. if they bebet wrong, they can get into aot of troue very quickly. if joscannot bet on his bank he will take it to peter's bank. the volcker rule is u unworkable as long as we do not return to glass-steagall. >> what you are going to see here- on the campaign trarail you are going to geget the 10,000-foot view of what needs to happe in d.c., the r real work of government will be taking place. >> mitt romney is going to be a very ambivalent republican o on this issue. the way to attack obama is to concentrate all this power and continue to tradade. >> kate, fla., january 31 -- >> they have nine offices, more than the

for the layman, what is the volcker rule and why do you support it? >> the rule simply says, "if you have a customer who wants to issue a bond, you could help him. but you can't trade in the bond market for your own account." and so what the rule does is it basically puts the banks back into the customer business and allows the wall street community to be in the pure trading and the business of speculation and hedge funds and so forth. and it separates those. >> sounds to me like you're calling the glass-steagall act back from the grave. >> i think i am. >> because? >> i just think it's better that we have that barrier than not. it makes sure that the fdic guarantee doesn't provide a funding base for proprietary trading activities. remember, the government guarantees your savings account and mine in the local bank. and, correctly, we don't want the government's guarantee for those accounts to act as a funding base for somebody who's speculating in the market. and so it's that kind of separation. it's a prudent barrier. and i'm astounded that anybody w

ok we have basil capital requirements but how long are they going to take to implement and the volcker rule in the u.s. yeah sure they're looking at it but you have all of these contingencies fighting against it and no one in power seems all that concerned not really least that's how i felt at davos listening to these guys and that's not even taking into account just how fragile our economic model is we were looking back at videos from two thousand acres that's what we like to do in our spare time during the financial crisis let's just move wind a second for you watch this. the concerns continue to be the leveraging that we are seeing around the edges for the other investors the recessionary fears that were brought to the board today by the fact that the economy right to for the first time sixty years. listen did you listen to just how vulnerable our entire economic model is vulnerable to the realities of life in real life prices don't rise forever and economies don't grow every quarter year over year over year forever but that's what we expect that's what we're obsessed with growth proppin

answer and a ban on proprietary trading for big banks was debated in congress today as part of the volcker rule which is part of dodd frank and surprise surprise lobbyists and big bank exacts have come out against it will bring.

investment banking and commercial banking which would be an important real manifestation of the volcker ruletting the water back in the reactor so they can create clean abundant energy. another part of that is we've created fuel rods, if you will, that are the swaps market that are very toxic fuel rods. specifically everything else in the world, stocks, bonds, commodity, oils, is traded on an exchange and yet we have a $708 trillion swaps market which is the credit insurance market that is the only market in the world that is not traded on an exchange. >> people make a ton of money will. >> politicians keep a secret $700 trillion -- the president has authorized will ththis. >> this is the cesspool that has driven so much of what is corrupt out there. and you have asked the most critical question which is what purpose does it serve. most of the other markets you talked about are there to create capital raising function. so much of the swap market, the credit markets, now are revolving around these arcane products that don't do anything other than permit people to bet in a casino without havin

you need to supplement that with many other measures including the volcker rule. >> yes, mr. perlmutter. >> thanks, mr. chair. in keeping with the theme dealing with england, i'd like to offer and place into the record an an excerpt from a chapter of the future of banking. >> okay, without objection. .. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> c-span's road to the white house coverage shows events leading up to saturday's south carolina primary. >> the obama administration came down with a policy that said in her program she cannot teach abstinence as a preferable way of avoiding out of wedlock birth. and she can't talk about marriage. she can't talk about marriage has any other than an alternative lifestyle no better or worse than any other life style. my question is why? >> when the president adopts a stimulus package of hundreds of billions of dollars that nobody has read, and then discovers to his great surprise years later as he himself put it that shovel ready jobs were not shuffle ready and the stimulus

on derivatives regulation, the volcker rule, potential money market reforms and other important matters, we will help ensure that the regulators get the rules right. we will continue to push for accountability and transparency at the consumer financial protection bureau. eyed and we were deeply disappointed to see the president install the director without the advice consent of the senate. and without the oversight of congress. we are not opposed to the director per se. we wanted to change the process so that one person didn't control this whole system. the chambers also working to modernize and overhaul the registry system, including legislation, pardon me, to reform the permitting process and to update the administration procedure act for the first time since the truman administration. our institute for legal reform, pardon me, will continue to fight the expansion of an excessive litigation that is sucking the vitality out of american companies, and with it tens and tens of thousands of jobs. we are going to build on our successful work in the state and seek passage of additional stat

later, a joint house subcommittee hearing looks at the volcker rule.prohibits financial institutions from entering into an advisory and credit to roll with clients and it tends to minimize conflict of interest. live coverage at 9:30 a.m. eastern. job council obama's called for an overhaul of the corporate tax system and expand the domestic oil drilling. from the white house, this is about 10 minutes. >> are you doing tax good. have a seat, everybody. for those of you alive not seen since before the break, happy new year. i am extraordinarily grateful for all the work that you have done. i want to start up by thinking jeff for his continued outstanding leadership of the jobs council. the plan is for me to maybe open up with a few remarks. then we have a bunch of presentations. one thing that has been striking about this jobs council is how focused and how hard working everybody has been around this table. this has not been a show counsel. this has been a work council. we have generated as good a set of proposals as we have seen coming out of the private