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Every regulatory speech on derivatives takes a bow to their hedging 'benefits.' Less publicly, regulators pay their respects to derivative profits, a blessed relief from the banks' troubled loans to less-developed countries, highly leveraged companies, and real estate swingers.

Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.

Do we have to regulate derivatives? Yes, we do. 'Cause when I did this in my investments, frankly, no one knew who could pay who. But derivatives have an important place in our economy.

The idea of a financial transaction tax on Wall Street trades is gaining momentum. I have a bill called - nicknamed the Robin Hood tax also. It's a bill that taxes stock trades, derivatives and bonds, and would generate in the neighborhood of $300 billion a year.

Derivatives in and of themselves are not evil. There's nothing evil about how they're traded, how they're accounted for, and how they're financed, like any other financial instrument, if done properly.

When they are employed wisely, derivatives make the world simpler because they give their buyers an ability to manage and transfer risk.

The reality is that the institutional framework in which Wall Street operates is fundamentally inappropriate, and it inevitably generates violent fluctuations of the market.

Derivatives trading should be standardized and as much as possible moved to clearinghouses.

The whole market mechanism and its evolution is something that, I'm kind of of the Buffett School. You know, if I see a derivative, I run the other way.

Arthur Laffer has taught us, 'If you tax something, you get less of it.' That's why firms are moving offshore in droves. It's not about being unpatriotic. It's that it doesn't pay, after-tax, to invest in the United States.