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I'm not sure people would think of me in this light, but frankly, what I enjoyed most about Bain & Company, the consulting firm, was the analytical process of solving tough problems.

If you look at us as a company, what's the one thing that's consistent? It has to be the biggest, the best, the greatest. My father, over the years, has bought some of the best mansions of the world. It's just something he loves.

For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country.

What we prefer to do is operate our investment bank in a way that is like what investment banks used to be, which is a middle man - someone who is here to match people who need capital with people who have capital - and not position ourselves at the center of that by taking big positions on a trading stance.

I invested in many companies, and I'm happy this one worked. This is capitalism. You invest in stock, it goes up, it goes down. You know, if you don't like capitalism, you don't like making money with stock, move to Cuba or China.

By any measure, CapitalSource outperformed both our direct competitors and the financial services industry in general, particularly in the context of the near collapse of the financial services industry where 19 of the 20 largest financial institutions in the country either failed or were bailed out by the government.

It's great that people get together and collaborate, talk about the facts and the analysis, all in the interest of having a great financial system.

We are a coalition government, and that limits our options in some ways. Privatization happens to be one such area.