My dad was a banker, and I've always had an interest in it.
The rating agencies historically actually did a pretty good job rating regular bonds.
Today, credit rating agencies rate companies, countries and bonds.
We've been in the business of regional banking, and we understand what it is to make loans, and that's the engine of growth to small and medium sized business.
What the banking system needs is creditors who monitor risk and cut their exposure when that risk is too high. Unlike regulators, creditors and counterparties know the details of a deal and have their own money on the line.
Credit ratings and risk weightings must undergo a thorough process of review and revision. No security or instrument on the planet should have a zero risk weighting.
A financier is a pawnbroker with imagination.
Rather than going through a commercial banking training program, at the first bank I ever worked in, I was the chairman. And it was my own money, so we loaned it out like it was my own money.
When you collect bad loans... you sure learn a lot about making good ones. You also learn a lot about the power of persuasion, persistence and desperation.
