Financial institutions have been merging into a smaller number of very large banks. Almost all banks are interrelated. So the financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks-when one fails, they all fall. We have moved from a diversified ecology of small banks, with varied lending policies, to a more homogeneous framework of firms that all resemble one another. True, we now have fewer failures, but when they occur... I shiver at the thought.

Anything organic requires some dose of variability so it can adapt all the time, and fixing things is not a good idea.

I lift heavy weights and sprint, but I am so bad at it that I develop severe injuries.

Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.

Weak men act to satisfy their needs, stronger men their duties.

I want them poor and they deserve to be poor. You can't have capitalism without punishment.

I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus.