Keith Gessen Quotes

Debt, we've learned, is the match that lights the fire of every crisis. Every crisis has its own set of villains - pick your favorite: bankers, regulators, central bankers, politicians, overzealous consumers, credit rating agencies - but all require one similar ingredient to create a true crisis: too much leverage.

The internal conditions in Iran are worsening in all aspects. Poverty and unemployment are becoming more severe, despite the fact that Iran has turned into a developed and industrialized country.

The very nature of finance is that it cannot be profitable unless it is significantly leveraged... and as long as there is debt, there can be failure and contagion.

The world knows already, they just don't have a picture up there or I'll spend the rest of my life in exile. It's hard to do that when you don't have any money.

More than ever before, Americans are suffering from back problems: back taxes, back rent, back auto payments.

Family responsibility, yes, and always. Family bankruptcy due to the cruel rules of government, no.

So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we would be in a worldwide depression.

I've had nonstop financial problems my whole adult life. It's always been a constant balance, year to year: 'Where's the time? Where's the money?'

We've all got to get away from this idea that the big money's still around.

Nevada was hit hardest by the recession - highest unemployment, highest foreclosure rate, highest bankruptcy rate.

I had been working for eight years and all I had to show for it was this horrible debt. At one point we had the bailiff at the door.

'Up in the Air' may be a glossy production sprinkled with laughter and sex, but it captures the distinctive topography of our Great Recession as vividly as a far more dour Hollywood product of 70 years ago, 'The Grapes of Wrath,' did the vastly different landscape of the Great Depression.

We're broke. It's never a fun message to deliver.

People don't walk away from their homes unless they can't make the payments. That's an indication that we are in a recession.

You know, every family and every business in California knows what it means to go through tough times.

Those who have a lot of money in Greece invest in housing abroad. It's all immoral. The Greek crisis is structural, but also political.

I never had the high-paying job or the company car. It took me over a decade to pay off my student loans. I never had to worry about where to dock my yacht to reduce my taxes.

As families and small businesses alike are tightening their belts to account for the worsening economy, they have every right to ask: 'Why isn't my government doing the same?'

I had to escape the destruction of my father's bankruptcy and all that difficulty.

In 1843, everybody was hungry, unemployed, and conditions were very bad.

It is absolutely impossible to settle the debts to pensioners, teachers, and others. The country hasn't got enough money to do so.

We have more billionaires than any country but the United States. And Putin can imprison any one of them at a moment’s notice. Do you think he is poor?

Financial problems cause distress and loss of self-respect.

America has seen enough of a handful of people growing rich at the cost of our nation descending into economic crisis.

I was broke from 19 to 26, borrowing money from my parents or my brothers or sisters every week to pay the bills.