The mistake our politicians so often make with these industry leaders is in thinking they are interested in, or respectful of, the power of government. All they want is to keep stealing. If you can offer them the government’s seal of approval on that, they’ll take it. But if you can’t, well, they’ll take that too.

One of the great cliches of campaign journalism is the notion that American elections have long since ceased to be about issues and ideas.

Having lived in a collapsed empire before - I lived in Russia right after the Soviet Union collapsed - you can see a lot of the classic signs of an empire that's on its way out.

The party in power almost always unapologetically engages in deficit spending, while the other party argues passionately against the evils of debt and deficits.

If the law doesn't apply equally to everybody, then you don't really have a system of law.

It's not a stretch to say the whole financial industry revolves around the compass point of the absolutely safe AAA rating. But the financial crisis happened because AAA ratings stopped being something that had to be earned and turned into something that could be paid for.

To be robbed and betrayed by a fiendish underground conspiracy, or by the earthly agents of Satan, is at least a romantic sort of plight - it suggests at least a grand Hollywood-ready confrontation between good and evil - but to be coldly ripped off over and over again by a bunch of bloodless, second-rate schmoes, schmoes you chose, you elected, is not something anyone will take much pleasure in bragging about.