Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Paul Volcker, an economic adviser the US President, on Wednesday attepted to persuade lawmakers to stop attempts to strip the central bank of its authority to supervise all but the biggest banks.

"It makes us essentially the ‘too-big-to-fail' regulator. We don't want that responsibility. We want to have a connection to Main Street as well as to Wall Street," Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill, adding that