There's nothing inappropriate about having debt in America. It's what helped us grow over time. And it's when debt gets out of control that you worry.

Does the business have favourable long term prospects?

That would be nice if [people] stuck [treasury bills] all under a mattress, but they got to buy something with them. Sometimes they buy a treasury note, sometimes they set up sovereign wealth funds. They can do all kinds of things. They can buy our companies here. As long as we consume more than we produce, and we trade away little pieces of the country daily, they're going to own something. Now, they can't run from American assets. I mean every day the rest of the world is going to have about two billion more of American assets than we have, as long as they sell us these goods.

There's not many businesses where someone can come in and offer to cut the price in half and somebody doesn't think about shifting. But that's the nature of the ratings business.

If you don't make mistakes you can't make decisions.

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we've got a system that allows them to do it.

What we really want to do is buy businesses that we would be happy to own forever.