Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for being here.
I'm sure you're aware that the expression “my ship came in” is something that came from the old Dutch Indies shipping company and basically was probably the greatest venture capital that ever existed in the history of mankind. Of course, these ships would go out into the wild and they could get shipwrecked, they could get hit by pirates, but if that ship came in, somebody became an instant millionaire. Back in those days it was probably worth a whole lot more than our millions are worth today.
When I think about the concept, the very concept of virtually where capitalism grew from, it was from those institutions, and then it spread off from New Amsterdam that became New York and Wall Street and all that trading. There was that understanding that when somebody had an idea or a product, if one were to invest in that, the greater the risk, the greater the reward would be.
I think about what happened in 2008-2009, the meltdown in the United States with the real estate bubble, and I wonder—I really don't wonder too long—had they not instituted a policy to lend money to people who really could never afford to pay it back or could never imagine to pay it back, if that meltdown would ever have happened. I think the answer is obvious; it wouldn't. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac existed as an arm of the government to move that project forward.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm still looking for a good example of when government.... I know government has a role to play, but when government starts to mess with the natural flow of money.... In other words, banks normally don't lend money to people who can't afford to pay it back, and people with money are averse to lending money to somebody if the return isn't such that it's going to be worth the risk. So I'm sorry that our other witness couldn't attend, because I am certainly not a scholar in this field. I only learn what I've learned in life and what I've observed.
I'm going to go to you, Mr. Arsenault. You mentioned companies...I think you said Microsoft and Google and a number of others. Do you think maybe that the money would have come regardless of whether or not there would have been...? I think in the United States there was, if my understanding is correct, no program like we have here. Would that money have flowed naturally? Did they simply not recognize it?