The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was a machine that turned lead into gold.

In Wall Street now, you have to hide what you're doing. It's more fun when you don't have to do that. But I don't think its sense of purpose has changed at all.

I was really interested in a pretty simple thing: what happens when someone tries to introduce moral considerations into Wall Street, what happens when someone wants to actually demand of himself and those who work with him that what they do is not just profitable but good and useful.

When something happens people didn't predict, they find ways to explain it as if it were predictable.

I think that fans are always looking for someone to blame. Wouldn't it be nice if they looked in the mirror?

Girls tend to attribute their failures to factors such as lack of ability, while boys tend to attribute failure to specific factors, including teachers' attitudes. Moreover, girls avoid situations in which failure is likely, whereas boys approach such situations as a challenge, indicating that failure differentially affects self-esteem.

Jacks are home runs. So are dongs, bombs, and big flies. Baseball people express their fondness for a thing by thinking up lots of different ways to say it.