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I look back at history, and some of the worst governments we've ever had, you know one of the first things they ever did? They went after the trade unions.

I got politics and economics moving and then others took over.

I come from a country in which I experienced economic collapse.

I saw the government really using the excuse of a weak economy and a financial crisis to create more government and to push onto the American entrepreneurial society more and more restraints and government activity.

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed.

I think it would take a real stretch to think that I caused the problems with the economy.

I think back a little bit when President Bush was elected President and what kind of economy he inherited from the Clinton administration. The economy was going down. It was not doing well.

However, the economics of our business continued to deteriorate. We barely escaped bankruptcy a year ago, and in the aftermath of that escape we had to make some even tougher decisions.