Mr. David McWilliams:

Yes, not only was it the right decision, it was the only decision that could have stopped a bank run. Over the last five years an amazing number of scenarios have been painted about what could have been done if, could, must, blah blah. Hindsight is a great luxury. At the time we had a banking system that had been set up to fail. It was not a matter of "if", it was a matter of "when". The combination of hot money and a bank run is the most vicious and contagious financial episode one can imagine. It is the financial equivalent of Ebola. One needs to come in with all possible interventions to reduce the perceived risk in the minds of people that their money will not be there when they go to the bank tomorrow. That is crucial. Much of my testimony has been about how, in God's name, did we let it get to that situation. Once one is in that situation, however, one has to ask whether one knows the facts and, if one does not, whether one should take the risk that not knowing the facts might imperil the banking system. There is absolutely no way one can do that. It is in black and white in all my writing that the guarantee needed to be temporary in order to give us time to get into the banks to investigate the situation.