"It's a hard asset and is bound to do well."

After all, if you're buying a hard asset like an office building, you can't take it back to Japan.

Say you buy an apartment building or some other hard asset like a piece of real estate.

"If you look at what infrastructure is, it's really the hard assets that provide essential services to a community," he said.

Another is Statement 121, which has to do with hard, long-term assets.

Companies in the services business tend to fall into that category, because they don't have a lot of hard assets.

"We will be a company based on hard assets and very predictable revenues."

But good will was amortized over far more time than hard assets.

"Real estate represents something technology doesn't - and that is hard assets," he said.

"People thought that if you put hard assets into the ground, at the very least you'd get your money back," one investment banker said.