Bob Diamond

There's 4,500.

It has the support of Secretary of the Treasury Besant.

That consolidation is necessary.

Makes the banks more competitive.

It increases the ROEs.

It makes them just better, better investments.

And I think 4,500 banks in the United States of America, it's just the wrong number.

And so we see this going over the next two to three years to closer to 1,000 or 1,500.

And we think also, John, I think this is really important.

The thesis here is one of consolidation and taking costs out.

So many of these smaller community banks are just too small to succeed.

They're very good banks.

But to get a positive ROE with technology costs, with regulatory relation costs, virtually all of these banks have the same technology platform.

So you eliminate one technology platform.

Many of them, or all of them, have regulatory relations staffs.

You can eliminate one of those.

You don't really need two.

So if you add the cost synergies, which we've proven in back testing really come out and are real, and you add the increase in ROE, because when a bank buys another bank,

There's purchasing, accounting, and you have to mark to market fully through the P&L, the bank that you're acquiring.

You're putting capital in.