“Bankruptcy cleans out the system. What’s wrong with that? SouthKorea went through this in the late 1990s. They didn’t have anyoneto bail them out, and they had to go through the pain. Sweden didit in the early 1990s. Mexico did it. Russia did it. The list goes onand on. Competent people take over the assets from incompetentpeople and rebuild from a solid base. Business has always been survivalof the fittest and Darwinism at its best. After all, this is what capitalismis all about.”

“Letting the banks go bust instead of perpetually bailing them out is the right way to go.Iceland Did It Right; All others are doing it wrong.”

“I do not believe in the power of brand names or in emulatingany of the brand name investors out there. It is a fact that all—ifnot at least most—of the biggest names in American finance andindustry out there today have proven after the 2008 crisis to be someof the most incompetent people there are. Starting with the untouchableGoldman Sachs, who was bailed out by over $5 billion fromWarren Buffett, to AIG and Citibank, who were bailed out by thehundreds of billions of dollars from the Troubled Asset Relief Program(TARP), having a name and a history does not make you the brightestand the best. All it takes is one nincompoop with a huge ego or aboard of directors who think they are smarter than everyone else todestroy what has taken generations to build.”

“Meant to be?’ It's just something people say so that they don't have to look at all the things they did wrong and wish they could take back. Only by the time they figure that out, it's too late.”

“... if one hasn't been through, as our people mercifully did not go through, the horrors of an occupation by a foreign power, you have no right to pronounce upon what a country does, which has been through all that.”

“In the beginning, though, I have to admit that I did have a chip on my shoulder. I did want to prove everyone wrong. But after I went through the process and came out the other side, it wasn't about anyone else.”