Lou Jiwei Quotes

For too long, our nation has relied on low interest rates rather than undertaking the necessary long term necessary economic reforms.

The U.K. and almost all of Europe have erred in terms of believing that austerity, fiscal austerity in the short term, is the way to produce real growth. It is not. You've got to spend money.

A government can't cut its way out of a recession any more than you can dig yourself out of a hole.

The BBC is locked to the reading of the economy that is run out of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls' office. They think if only you spend and borrow more money you can create growth everywhere.

Popular as Keynesian fiscal policy may be, many economists are skeptical that it works. They argue that fine-tuning the economy is a virtually impossible task, and that fiscal-stimulus programs are usually too small, and arrive too late, to make a difference.

When there's downward pressure on growth, one choice is to adjust economic policy, increase deficits, relax monetary policy. That might have a short-term benefit, but may not be beneficial for the future.

In all modesty, we must admit that governments are not always the best doctors when it comes to diagnosing economic ailments and prescribing the right treatment.

The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.

Obama and the Democrats' preposterous argument is that we are just one more big tax increase away from solving our economic problems. The inescapable conclusion, however, is that the primary driver of the short-term deficit is not tax cuts but the lack of any meaningful economic growth over the last half decade.

The Obama administration's attempted short-term fixes, even with unprecedented monetary easing by the Federal Reserve, produced average GDP growth of just 2.2% over the past three years, and the consensus outlook appears no better for the year ahead.

It's going to be difficult to stimulate the real economy in the U.S. at a faster rate than 2 percent and perhaps even less if we have that fiscal cliff in December or January 2013.

The more we can do to address fiscal austerity, the better our markets will do, and there is a real political shift to doing that.

Until the Fed dumps inflation targeting and the U.S. abandons its weak-dollar policy, inflation will rule the day.

The emphasis so far on fiscal austerity, while to a degree necessary for the countries facing market funding difficulties, is excessive when carried out across the board.

Whatever the economy needs to maintain itself, the government will do it.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

Look, I don't dispute that the deficit has increased.

What the president announced yesterday, is that somehow magically, if we just continue to prime the pump of taxpayer dollars, we're going to see magically an economic recovery.

History speaks pretty clearly that the markets do better with Democrats. Republicans' ideas of what constitutes fiscal responsibility simply are not good for the stock market. Democrats have many tendencies, but one of them is to look after the workers, and actually that tends to be good for demand and good for markets.

Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes.

The pro-growth policies and spending restraint of Conservatives work.

The financial crisis should not become an excuse to raise taxes, which would only undermine the economic growth required to regain our strength.

It is the Democrats who get the economic engine of this economy moving forward again.

In the past, proactive fiscal polices almost always meant just more investment and an increase in the fiscal deficit.

We have to change economic policy: create confidence, foster investment, cut the public deficit, restructure taxation and reform the labor laws.