• The natural progression of business: Innovators, Imitators and Idiots
• Derivatives were national weapon of mass destruction.
• Cash isn’t king if it just sits there. This is a time when cash buys a lot more and a time to accumulate cash.
• Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.
• In my adult lifetime I have not seen people as fearful as they are economically as they are right now.
• 8% of money market funds in the U.S. have been moved in the last 2 weeks to new institutions. 10s of billions of dollars which is incredible.
• We have a terrific economy that is like a great athlete that has just had a cardiac arrest and needs to be resuscitated. Don’t argue about inches where to shock should be applied.
• There is one institution in the world that can leverage up when big businesses are leveraging down. That is the U.S. government.
• Politicians pointing the finger at an executive that walked away with a golden parachute of a failed company and assigning blame is wrong. It’s a waste of time and we need to move forward.
• The U.S. government can borrow at 1% and buy assets that are yielding 15%. The government is going to make a lot of money and I’d like to have 1% of the $700B deal. I just don’t have $700B dollars or I’d take the deal.
• AIG would be fine today if they’d never heard of the word derivatives.
• Derivatives are a national weapon of mass destruction
• Leverage is the only way a smart guy can go broke
• The government might be buying $2 Trillion worth of real estate for $700B.
• We have a 7 for 1 improvement in the last century
• The private sector tried to save AIG but the problem was too big. The Feds structured the deal very very well
• I'd be much more interested to hear a debate between the next 2 Treasury Secretaries candidates, than the VP candidates.