Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.

I would say it's more important who the treasury secretary is than who the vice president is. If you want to have a debate here, I'd like a debate between potential treasury secretaries than the vice presidential debate.

Credit worthiness is like virginity, it can be preserved but not restored very easily, so it is crazy to play around with it.

[People] have seen the credit market seize up. They're worried about money market funds, although the latest proposition from government should take care of that. They've seen eight percent of the bank deposits in the United States get moved very skillfully, I might say, within the last couple of weeks from institutions that they thought were fine a few months ago to other institutions. They are not wrong to be worried.

Do not put all your eggs in one basket.

If some institution wants to sell you a billion dollars worth of mortgages, they might have to sell 100 million in the market, and then you'll buy the other 900 million on the same terms. Now, the very fact that this has been authorized or will be authorized, I hope, will firm up the market to some degree. And that's fine. But you don't want to have artificial prices being paid.

Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised.