You don't run a business hoping you don't have a recession.

I'm not going to name anybody, but I think there are about five to 10 global institutions that will emerge as our primary competitors across the board. They're adjusting to this new world, like we are.

Banks don't want certain asset classes, and that's created opportunities for private equity, hedge funds, Silicon Valley. In this case I think he was referring to some of the European banks shedding assets, and the big buyers are probably not going to be big American banks. Someone like Blackstone may have a very good chance to buy those assets, leverage them, borrow up a little bit, and do something good there.

Unraveling the euro is a terrible thing. This is a 50-year endeavor to get this continent together and that's a wonderful endeavor.

But in general, as countries get wealthier, there's going to be more savings, which means you're going to have intermediation. So part of it is just the huge growth in wealth, and part of it was globalization - these companies, these clients getting much bigger and much more global.

If the government wants to do social policy, it should not be done in a quasi-public company. If you have a mortgage guarantee company which is done by the U.S. government, it should be guaranteed by the originators, i.e., the shareholder.

If you can't use dividends, it's not a bad thing to give it back to your shareholders. They'll use it somewhere else.