I get heartfelt thanks from all kinds of people. Today I heard from a waitress in Georgia who has lost her job and is trying to figure out how her local bank can change the terms on her credit card, and I heard from a physicist at a major research university who wants to explain a better theory of financial stress tests.

Me, I was waiting tables of 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools, and taught elementary school.

The total amount of money that Wall Street handed out in bonuses last year was double the total income of ALL full-time minimum wage workers. That's obscene.

It is not the job of the Department of Education to maximize profits for the government at the cost of squeezing students who are struggling to get an education.

Our number one responsibility is to protect Americans from terrorism, that’s our job, so being tough on terrorism is enormously important.

You built a factory out there, good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads that the rest of us paid for. You hired workers that the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.

My advice is to treat [credit cards] like what they are: little plastic grenades that must be handled very carefully.