HON. PETER FISHER: Continuous improvement in the efficiency with which we convert savings into investment is the preeminent objective that we, as a society, have for our financial intermediaries. We want both to minimize the potential loss of savings to individuals and society, and to maximize real risk-adjusted returns on investment. For the last century and a half, we have sought to minimize the potential loss of savings by accepting a role for the federal government in promoting what in the late 19th Century we would have called monetary stability, but by the end of the 20th Century, we came to call financial stability.