Maybe you'll take the cash out. So a credit card company or a bank that goes into the business of saying we're going to be the broker, we're going to sell you a mortgage that you're going to be able to pay off, we're going to help you reduce your credit card debt, we're going to help you save for retirement, we're going to put you into mutual funds that have low fees rather than high fees.

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.

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

I don't go by the ratings. I buy wine that tastes good. Statistically, anybody's ability to predict what will be a good wine a decade from now is limited.

The assumption that everybody will figure out how much they have to save and then will just implement that plan is obviously preposterous.

I think one lesson we have to learn is that there's a lot more risk than we're giving credit to, a lot more what economist calls systematic risk.

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.