LTCM lost money when Russia defaulted on a certain class of bonds, and then they had other investments like on the spread between two different kinds of shares of Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company. Now that seems completely unrelated to Russian bonds. But they were related because other hedge funds saw similar discrepancies and they were all making similar bets.

Credit cards have been extremely profitable to banks. They're profitable not from the fees they collect from the retailers that use the credit cards, that pays the bills, but the real profits come from the interest payments and the charges to users that are unexpected.

It would be much more consumer friendly for them to beep you when you swipe your card that says, uh-oh you're over your limit, are you sure you want to use that?

Is there a market for somebody selling a credit card that helps people pay down their balances? I think the question is yes. But it would have to be sold by a bank that's really willing to invest in being a trusted partner with its consumers, because they will make less money on each consumer.

There's a second component of a good savings plan, which is something that a colleague of mine called Schlomo Benartzi and I developed many years ago, that we call "save more tomorrow."

I think we also have learned the lesson that we have to have better incentive structures.

Every American worker should be able to save for retirement via payroll deductions.