I think that they hoped the private sector would come in. And the private sector tried to come in until they saw the size of the problem. I mean, from were people on that weekend that thought they'd had a solution. And then the hole kept getting bigger and bigger. And all of a sudden became apparent that 20 billion wouldn't do it and 30 billion wouldn't do it and 40 billion wouldn't do it. So it got beyond anybody's ability to certainly to do it in a short period of time.

Is management rational?

I am out of step with present conditions. When the game is no longer played your way, it is only human to say the new approach is all wrong, bound to lead to trouble, and so on. On one point, however, I am clear. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand ( although I find it difficult to apply ) even though it may mean foregoing large, and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don't fully understand, have not practiced successfully, and which possibly could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital.

To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. You must supply the emotional discipline.

Making money isn't the backbone of our guiding purpose; it is the by-product of our guiding purpose.

If AIG had tried to unwind their derivatives books. I don't know. It would have hit every institution in the world.

It takes 150 years to build an investment bank and only five minutes to convince you to sell me preferred stock in it at a 10% interest rate.