“I think synergies are a lot like UFOs: Lots of people claim to have seen them, but few can actually prove they exist.”

Building a portfolio around index funds isn’t really settling for the average. It’s just refusing to believe in magic.

Home ownership was the fig leaf for the rise in subprime lending. But that was really about cash-out refinancings, not buying homes.

The last and most painful irony is that the two longtime rival armies in the securitization market – the investment banks and the GSEs – would end up magnifying each other’s sins rather than keeping each other in check.