Do you think the (Timothy) Geithner (the US treasury secretary) plan will work?
Skeptics have said that the weak link is the price at which the toxic assets will be taken off bank books. I think it is important for the system that banks that are holding large illiquid assets have opportunities to get those assets off their balance sheets and into the hands of investors that want to hold those assets. That would free up banks’ capital for other things while the investors who want to take those assets will hold them. It’s very hard to match the price expectations of the holders of those assets with those who want to purchase them as investments. So we need the government help to make those price expectations converge. Even if people are finding fault with this, I am sure the balance sheets of the holders of those assets are being cleaned up a bit. Even though the plan has not been a success very quickly, and more things need to be done, there has been progress. And with the passage of time things will get better. You have been talking about bringing down compensatio
