We set no volume goals in our insurance business generally-and certainly not in reinsurance-as virtually any volume can be achieved if profitability standards are ignored.
If I taught a class, on my final exam I would take an Internet company and ask, 'How much is this company worth?' Anyone who would answer, I would flunk.
I am not in the business of predicting general stock market of business fluctuations. If you think I can do this, or think it is essential to an investment program, you should not be in the partnership.
I mean there is no capital requirements to it or anything of the sort. And basically, I said there were possibly financial weapons of mass destruction, and they had them. They destroyed AIG. They certainly contributed to the destruction of Bear Sterns and Lehman. Although Lehman had other problems, too.
It is unquestionably true that the investment companies have their money more conventionally invested than we do. To many people conventionality is indistinguishable from conservatism. In my view, this represents erroneous thinking. Neither a conventional nor an unconventional approach, per se, is conservative.
I've already written a section in the annual report for next year explaining why I think in one case that the figures on our balance sheet as calculated are wrong. But it's the standard way of doing it. It's holy writ. The SEC wants us to do it that way, and we'll do it that way, and I'll explain why I think it's wrong and shareholders can read it and see whether they agree with my logic or don't.
I'm just lucky to have been in the right place at the right time. Another place, another time, I wouldn't have been as successful. Society enabled me to make my money and my money should go to society.
There's not many businesses where someone can come in and offer to cut the price in half and somebody doesn't think about shifting. But that's the nature of the ratings business.