"I want that CEO equation to be that if this place goes down or needs government help, I'm busted."

In his January 20, 2010 CNBC Squawk Box interview, Buffett presents his solution to change future behavior of bank management and directors.

"I think, and I'm not even sure how you draft this into statutes, but the banks that got into big trouble, it was management at the top. And a number of those went away rich. They didn't go away as rich as they were earlier, but I think that's terrible. I think, if I were on the board of directors of a bank, and you do this in conjunction with the government, but I think you should have something so that if a bank ever has to go to the Federal government, not to the FDIC because that's a form of insurance, but if they have to go to the Federal government to be saved, the CEO and any CEO of the previous two years before that, and his wife, they sign something so that they are essentially wiped out. If an institution that's so important to this country really causes the country great difficulty, I think the CEO, I want that CEO's equation to be that if this place goes down or needs government help, I'm busted. And I can't put it all in my wife's name and she's busted, too. And then I would have strict penalties for directors, probably five times their average compensation or something. I think that would do more to change behavior, the kind of behavior that gets us into trouble, then anything else you could do."
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CNBC Squawk Box Interview, January 20, 2010