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.

You have two pages, that's the whole credit card agreement. The terms are clear and flat and easy to see so anyone can read them. So you could lay four credit cards in front of you and say, 'Oh, that's the one that has the highest rate, that's the one that has the really scary provision that could hurt me.'

The banks lobbied Washington so they could write the rules that got us into this crisis. They then lobbied Washington to get the money to bail them out. And then they are lobbying Washington to write the rules so they can get us into the next crisis. It's perfect circularity.

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

A lot of people think that regulations bring higher costs, but regulation is also about making sure that someone doesn't get to beat out the competition because they're dumping filth in the river or spewing poisons in the air.

Middle class America is acutely aware of how bad this economy is, and it is going to demand changes. I don't think politicians can afford to be complacent.

I want to be blunt: We should not be fighting about equal pay for equal work, and access to birth control, in 2012. These issues were resolved years ago - until the Republicans brought them back.