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lend. colin barr, a senior writer. good to see pup thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> is there anything that these world financial regulators can do orave done that p could actually prevent what happpenie two years ago from happening again? >> they're on the right track. saying you have to hold more money. not going to have another situation whereveryone levers up to the sky. >> right. >> that's important. the other thing is that the experience in 2008 was bad for everyone. even for the bankers who kept their bonuses. >> sure. >> people didn't like having their -- >> nobody wants this happening again. >> right. >> tell me has you mean when yoe say -- we talk about this generally but talk about not being so levered up, not having so much leverage. what does that mean? to my viers what does that all mean? >> all the banks borrowed so much money, easy to borrow, very cleep. everyone assumed there would never be another banking crisis or recession, some thought. some thought we, everything was
so we tried to fill that void as the banks werewe getting well, makingul sure the small business could keep their doors open. but even by doubling the number of sba loans there's still not enough pital to meet the demand for small businesses across the country. that's why this bill tt we're looking to pass this week out of the senate and thatji jerry and jim already voted for is so simple. because what it would do is it authorizationding to provide to community banks who are most likely to give loans to small businesses. but it would say to those banks, you know what, we're going tobl hold you accountable for actually lending the money. so -- because what we don't want to do is just help the banks boost their balance sheets but they're never getting the money out of the door. over the long term, we think that there are going to be enormous opportunities for banks
cost taxpayers a lotf o money, utng we're essentially giving some money up front that's going to then be recouped. i think there are a lot of ideas that we can pursue on that front that could really make a difference a put a lot of people back to work, whether they're the folkselling the insulation at home depot or the small ntractor that for a long time wa remodeling kitchens or putting in home additions. ybe th business has dried up. this would be a new area for them to get put to work. and about one out of four construction -- one out of four jobs that have been lost during this recession are related to the construction industry in some fashion. that -- you know, those folks have been hit harder than just about anybody else. this would be an important boost for them. >> can i add to that one quick thing? >> pref sident obamamen the backyard of a home in fairfax, virginia, speaking to area residents. about 30 people. area esidents, small business
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decisions is to make sure that i'm talking to scientists and h e ethicists and build a common sense consensus that allows us to make progress over the long term. okay? yeah. go ahead. >> mr. president, it's a privilege for me to be here. you talk about small business loans. ecmy company is a high tech company and we e growing and we are providing high tech jobs for americans. how ca we ensure that banking and lending institutions are going to actually lend money to small businesses? there have been a number of eps down in that way, but so far i've been denied a loan twice and only got the -- for the third time, after i asd for sba-backed loan. >> tell me more about your business, by the way. i've actually read about it but tell people here wouldin be interested -- because you're
to make money with businesses like yours, because yours are the ones that grow. but they're still feeling gun shy because of what happened on wall street. and in fairness to a lot of the community banks, they weren't the ones who were making big bets on derivatives, but they were punished, nonetheless. they've been hit really hard in the housing market. they've been hit on their portfolios. they've been trysting to strengthen their portfolios. but when we provide these loan guarantees through the sba or provide cheaper money to them that they can then lend out and as long as we'reonitoring them to make sure they actually lend it to small businesses, they are the ones that are most likely to get the money out the door. this bill is very important. it has been held up now for a couple of months unnecessarily. there was an article in the "usa today" just about three weeks ago that said small businesses were actually holding off on
us to invest this money elsewhere. >> well, that's why it's so important to make sure that if they are getting help from us hn terms of having more money to lend, that they actually lend it out and they lend it to small businesses. and we've got to make a direct link between the help that they're getting and them actually lending the money. that's goi to be critical. all right. who's next? yes, over here. hey, wendy. w are you? >> i am so honored -- i'm so honored and delighted to be here, thank you.be >> you must be john's younger sister. >> yes, definitely. no, he's my kid brother. and i actually am the stringer in from boston with that hockey team you're meeting with this afternoon. >> there you go. i've been looking forward to congratulating them. >> i would tell you just a little story, which is when i was in high school here at woodson high school, i got involved in historic preservation. and i worked on an archaeology d
families because we understa people's incomes a wages have not gone up, kept pace with increases in health care and college and so forth. the second thing thator we felt was very important was to start creating some rules of the road again. so in financial services, for example, we passed a financial regulatory bill to make sure that we're not going to have taxpayer bailouts, make sure e a banks have to oper little bit more responsibly and take less risks with the money that they're investing. and we also made sure that consumers are treated more fairly, because part of what happened in this financial crisis was people were getting mortgages that they didn't understand. suddenly the bottom fell out of the housing market and banks found themselves in a crisis situation. so what we' said is, let's make sure that consumers know exactly the kinds of mortgages they're getting. let's make sure that they can't be steered into these balloon-type payments where
going to grow to the sky. lots of homeowners did like the bank, borrowed, didn't have the ability to pay. these rules will keep that from happening again. borrowed much more than the average person,li leveraging the ability t translate one dollar into many more is not only common in the banking industry it's what it's been built on in recent decades? >> it makes it work. they get you $10 and can do $100 in lending. that's okay. the problem, doing more than $100 in lending and using that money to buy things that were not -- >> the house of cards we were talking about. of cards. us >> what would you say in lay terms was the big accomplishment out of this meeting that took sw place in switzerland? >> everybody's on the same page, we need more capital. europe didn't want levels this high. the united states was one of the groups, countries, pushing for stnger regulation. so bank stock, up today. a part of that because the
technologically wired economy unss we're winning that battle to msure our kids can compete. so what we've said is we're going to put more money into higher education and k through 12. but here's the catch. the money is only going to go to those communities that are serious about reforming their education system so they work ll, because it's -- education is not just matter of putting more money into it. you also have to make sure that we've got theac best teachers, that we've got accountability, that the way we'rer designing or schools help our kids actually succeed over the long term. especially in areas of math and science where we're lagging even further behind than we were a generation a ago. so those are the tngs that we've gone trying to do over the last 19 months. now, as i said before, the economy is growing, but it's not growing as fast as we would like. so over te last week, i've put