Haseeb

I think it's pretty clear that the banks are being mendacious in claiming that this is going to cause capital flight and all this harm to their businesses.

I think that's not a serious claim.

But then why do they care so much?

I think the real argument is that it's going to affect their profitability.

That's the real argument.

That is not a very...

That argument is not going to be very politically successful.

Nobody really cares that much about the margins of the banks.

They do care about the collapse of credit or they care about the crushing of community banks.

Those are very sympathetic arguments to make in public.

It's not very sympathetic to say, well, we don't want margin compression.

We like our margins.

Oh, I agree with that.

And I think to be clear, like the best way to make your strongest argument is

is to make true arguments.

I think this is a true argument.

This is correct.

I haven't done the math.

I'm not an economist, so I don't want to convey too deeply this idea that, okay, it's unobjectionable in every way, but I think it's pretty clear that the banks were kind of making stuff up in the claim that this is going to crush community banks or that this is going to collapse lending activity in the U.S.

I think that's a ridiculous claim, and there's just no evidence to make it.