What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so.

I do not deny that many appear to have succeeded in a material way by cutting corners and by manipulating associates, both in their professional and in their personal lives. But material success is possible in this world and far more satisfying when it comes without exploiting others.

Regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary.

Any informed borrower is simply less vulnerable to fraud and abuse.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

I love facts and figures. It's like following a detective story, piecing together what's going on in the economy.

Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.