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The trade of banks is the buying and selling of interest and exchange.

Banks need to have large shareholders on the board that have a direct interest in their performance.

If a lending institution is faced with bids for a package of toxic assets that are less than the carrying value of those assets, the sale of those assets would trigger a further loss and reduce the underlying capital of the institution.

Remember that banks aren't markets. The market is amoral. The market doesn't care who you are. You're a trade to the market. The market will sell you if they think you're riskier.

The assets you want to buy are the ones people have to sell.

At the heart of banking is a suicidal strategy. Banks take money from the public or each other on call, skim it for their own reward and then lock the rest up in volatile, insecure and illiquid loans that at times they cannot redeem without public aid.

Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.

People want to make sure there is flexibility to reallocate assets. They are trusting us to make the asset allocation decisions.

People get into debt head over heels because banks make it so easy to do so. Then the banks come along and act like these people who can't or won't pay their bills are the dregs of society.

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.