So this is current yield grants interest rate observer of the air. And I am Jim Grant, and with me as always is the great deputy editor of Grant, Evan Lorenz. And as per always, Henry French, is our sound engineer. And with us today is Paul Kupiak, who is quite extraordinary thinker about the institution

of banking.

He's at American Enterprise Institute.

And before I get into his CV, which is formidable, I am going to ask my sidekick, Evan Lorenz, to do a bit of

dramatic reading. Paul UC has something to say about the banking business, and so does the

FDIC, Evan, will you favor us with a dramatic reading of what the, yeah. Sure, this is from May 29th,

and I'm speaking for FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg.

This is him summing up the first quarter results for FDI insured banks. The banking industry

continued to show resilience in the first quarter. Net income rebounded, asset quality metrics

remain generally favorable, and the industry's liquidity was stable. However, the banking

industry still faces significant downside risk from the continued effects of inflation, volatility and market interest rates, and geopolitical uncertainty. In addition,

deterioration in certain loan portfolios, particularly office properties and credit cards,

continues to warrant monitoring. All right? That's pretty positive, though, right? Yeah,

earnings up, asset quality good. You didn't say stuff's going to fail. Or what is it? Subprime

is contained. I mean, that was a... Yeah. Well, before, I'm going to ask Paul Kupiak of the American Enterprise

Institute, what do you think about that? But first, I'm going to tell you some of his bona fides.

He was chairman of the Research Task Force of the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision, that was 2010-13,

Associate Director and later Director of the Center for Financial Research of the FDIC,

deputy chief of the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation in the Department of Monetary and

Financial Systems of the IMF, a senior analytical being at, among other institutions, Freddie Mac,

J.P. Morgan, the Board of Governors of the Fed itself, and the Bank for International Settlements.

He is a holder of the Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

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