Banks were once places to hold money and were very careful in lending to finance families as they built a future - bought homes, bought cars, took out student loans.
Banks hold deposits and savings entrusted to them by individuals, by businesses, by governments and by central banks. They put that money to work, helping people to buy homes, for example, or lending to businesses to invest in expansion.
Under Bill Clinton's HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Community Reinvestment Act regulators gave banks higher ratings for home loans made in 'credit-deprived' areas. Banks were effectively rewarded for throwing out sound underwriting standards and writing loans to those who were at high risk of defaulting.
When I first came into money, I bought six or seven homes. One weekend I went to Miami and bought an apartment and a mansion several blocks from each other, which was not that bright!
I was a very independent, successful girl. I made my own money, I bought my own airline tickets. When I got a paycheck, I went to Bergdorf and I bought my own clothes. There were no rock stars buying me my clothes.
Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market. It is not clear what they have bought, how many secondhand materials they have bought. I am very worried that something like Chernobyl will happen to Iran.
Manchester United and Liverpool have been bought with huge leverage, and we've got Roman Abramovich at Chelsea who can turn his loans into shares. It is really important for the Premier League to ask itself: if a club is being bought on such a mountain of debt, isn't that a possible recipe for disaster for the future?
I took my .38 out and looked to see that there were bullets in all the proper places. I knew there would be, but it did no harm to be careful. And I'd seen Clint Eastwood do it once in the movies.
Well, I guess that early 12 string. The first Martin I bought. I bought it around 1957 with money I earned as a janitor assistant. I bought brand new. I still have that.
If you think about a lifestyle short of retirement that lends itself to being a hardcore gamer, there is none better than being a major league starting pitcher. I work once every five days and travel and am alone all the time. So while the other guys were spending their money on the all the cars and jewelry, I bought laptops.
The Germans made just about every bad investment you could have made in the last 10 years. They invested in Icelandic banks. They invested in Greek government bonds. They were heavy into Irish banks, big into Irish banks, and they bought U.S. subprime mortgage bonds.
I bought a Honda CRX Si, a two seater, and immediately after I took possession, my wife and I found out we were pregnant.
All my foster homes were very good to me. But it's still not a very nice experience. It's only when you're older, you realise: we were on our own in there. As kids, you don't know what's happening. You're here. Then you're in the next house. But the families were all very good to us.
Separating out banks and investment banks right now under Glass-Steagall would have very big implications to the liquidity and the capital markets and banks being able to perform necessary lending.
The loans I took out for my undergraduate degree were manageable. But my legal education was more expensive, and I paid for it almost entirely through public and private loans.
We bought an apartment building and were going to live off the rent money. We rented to people who were on welfare and a lot of times they couldn't pay the rent. We wouldn't throw them out so we lost the building.
We bought a doomed textile mill [Berkshire Hathaway] and a California S&L [Savings & Loan; Wesco] just before a calamity. Both were bought at a discount to liquidation value.