When you talk about Social Security, it's not just enough to say, we're looking at you, this really matters. It's the fact that a million Americans think it matters. Oh, wait, it's 2 million Americans think it matters. No, it's 4 million Americans. It's 6 million, wait, it's 10 million, it's 50 million Americans who care about this. That's how we're going to make change.

The bankers might not have said it in so many words, but gradually their strategy emerged: Target families who were already in a little trouble, lend them more money, get them entangled in high fees and astronomical interest rates, and then block the doors to the bankruptcy exit if they really got in over their heads.

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.

I don't like credit cards. Let me triple underline that.

I'm proud of my Native American heritage.

Adjusted for inflation, somebody going to college today to a state university, is paying about 300 percent of what her mom or dad did just 30 years ago.

What we collectively decide about how to bail out our economy, how to pull our economy out of a ditch and what rules we put in place to make sure this problem does not happen again, will shape our country for the next 50 years. This is it.