You can design a mortgage system that is different without a Fannie and Freddie, but there are principles you have to have, to have a good system.

I haven't studied it deeply, but the American banks started the crisis with far more capital and what I would call "good liquidity." The riskiest funding is unsecured wholesale funding. It's the most fickle. Not repo, which the government focused on, too. Unsecured. JPMorgan Chase had almost none of that - virtually zero.

The government has the right to change laws and rules and regulations.

Acting like everyone who's been successful is bad and because you're rich you're bad, I don't understand it.

If you look at Detroit, that mayor, it's been a train wreck for 40 years, the population has gone from 2 million to 700,000. This Mayor comes in, and he talked about streetlights, sanitation, jobs, policing, schools, affordable housing. He's doing it all, and it's growing for the first time in 30 years. Literally, one man. But that one man couldn't do it without business. And business couldn't have done it without a political environment where they wanted to improve things. If you had an antibusiness environment there, it would still be down there.

Wall Street gives money to both [Democrats and Republicans] because they want to be on the good side of whoever becomes president .

If you have the choice, it's far better to say, "That person has the job, and they really don't need that much of my oversight." Maybe they don't need any of it.