While government clearly plays the major role in fighting poverty through policies on things such as education, tax, and trade, business creates the wealth that matters.

Growth is what solves most of the big economic and social problems: poverty, government deficits, quality of life, rising healthcare and retirement costs.

I'm totally convinced that the battleground of banking is not the front office. The battleground is the back end.

As a Swiss-Italian who has always worked for foreign banks, there was clearly an element of pride going back to my roots and working for the biggest bank in my country.

To make money in New York, you have to add gigs when starting out, so while I was acting quite a bit, I would do modeling.

Look, we know we screwed up when we were in the majority. We fell in love with power. We spent way too much money - especially on earmarks. There was too much corruption when we ran this place. We were guilty. And that's why we lost.

Building companies involves creating great wealth. If that means I am an oligarch, OK, it's fine. But if being an oligarch is about buying football clubs, it is not for me.

A lot of people in this business are born with money or family connections.