We've gotten tremendous support. Everybody now understands how critical it is to help small businesses get out of this recession and into recovery.

We are very much engaged across the government, very much engaged in streamlining and simplifying our activities with borrowers and lenders, because that saves time and saves costs and we believe we can do that while maintaining the same or increased levels of oversight and risk management.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in Inc.'s first-ever 'Hire Power Awards' event in Washington, D.C. The event was a testament to the power of American entrepreneurship and the role that it plays in driving job creation and innovation in a wide array of industries.

It's not government that creates jobs; it's small business. Our job is to make sure they have the access to capital, the access to contracting opportunities, and the help, advice and mentoring that they need to go out and be successful.

The customer is always right: 'It's my money. You have to listen to me'.

Now that I'm a civilian again, I can once more comment on economic and financial issues without my words being put under the microscope by Fed watchers.

We continue to subsidize highways and aviation, but when it comes to our passenger rail system, we refuse to provide the money Amtrak needs to survive.

America's sanctions policy is largely consistent and, in a certain sense, admirable. By applying economic restraints, we label the most oppressive and dangerous governments in the world pariahs. We wash our hands of evil, declining to help despots finance their depredations, even at a cost to ourselves of some economic growth.