When I was growing up in the United States and Sweden, I never thought about becoming a politician.

But sovereign debt is a wider question not only in Europe but across the globe. While every country is a unique case, I think it's not an issue of countries acting on their own. We need a more coordinated strategy not only in Europe but around the world.

I never thought of politics as a profession.

We are a country with great potential. We have the political will to make deep changes in a just and equitable way, to put our country back on a development path, to meet the challenges of a new world.

You know, if you look back in the 1930s, the money went to infrastructure. The bridges, the municipal buildings, the roads, those were all built with stimulus money spent on infrastructure. This stimulus bill has fundamentally gone, started out with a $500 rebate check, remember. That went to buy flat-screen TVs made in China.

Whether it's a penalty or a tax, it's all one in the same. It's coming out of somebody's hard-earned money in their pocketbooks and that's the point. So in some ways, to me, it's a distinction without a difference.

My whole life has always been about looking for that person that money can't buy in that they've got a bee in their bonnet.

It's honestly true that money means nothing to me.