Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.

As someone with a deep faith in competition and the market, I also know that markets only work with tough enforcement of the rules that guarantee competition and fair play - and that the pressure to break those rules only gets stronger as the amount of money involved gets larger.

Delay is the enemy of progress.

I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself.

When you're in office, there are tangible moments when you can see tangible successes.

I don't have any particular expertise-I've never been a banker or an investment banker. But I did see an evolution in the system that I thought was problematic.

The Tea Party isolated Mitt Romney from mainstream voters, linking him to a rabid ideology that he could not shake as he desperately tried to move to the middle in the closing weeks of the campaign. Lesson: The loudest voices don't often command the votes needed to win in November.