Professor William Black:

Yes. You are probably particularly aware of what I am going to say. This is a federal agency that had three presidential appointees, so you get the best you can. You have to reach agreements. The best we could get was a restriction on 25% growth annually. The rule of thumb in banking for many decades has been that if you grow more than 25% a year you will likely fail, so this is a very weak limit. But here is the good news. It was still a cutback from growth of over 50% a year, which proved fatal to all 300 of these institutions. When I say "fatal", remember - they are dead but they are reporting that they have record profits. So you are not causing the failure, but you force recognition of the failure. In essence, these are Ponzi schemes. Ponzi schemes must grow extremely rapidly to appear to succeed for a while.