In the old days, when you took out a mortgage, it was probably through a local bank or a credit union, and whoever gave you your loan held on to it for life. If you lost your job or got too sick to work and suddenly had trouble making your payments, you could call a human being and work things out.

I think America has the best assholes in the world. I defy the Belgians or the Japanese to produce something like a Donald Trump.

Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism.

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.

Politics is about a lot more than winning and losing. I think politics at its best is about compromise, shades of grey and about issues.

The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending - with the exception of the money spent on them.

Since the end of the Cold War, America has been grasping left and right for an identity.