Jose Maria Aznar Quotes

What would happen if the markets suddenly questioned our ability to keep public finances in check? What would be the effect on growth?

The markets don't like instability and they don't like uncertainty.

The stock market is like a small row boat on a rough sea, bouncing around as it drifts, whereas the macro economy is like a large ocean liner, very ponderous and difficult to maneuver but without such a rough journey.

If the markets had behaved badly, that would obviously add to people's sense of alarm... but there has been a lot of reassurance coming, particularly in the way the Brits handled all this. There seems to be no great fear that something like that is going to happen here.

The markets are much more interested in America's long-term trajectory than they are in feeling that there is an acute short-term crisis.

The global economic outlook remains fragile and uncertain. Global economic imbalances persist and we must address them or risk future instability.

There's a loss of faith in the banking system that for so long has been the backbone of prosperity and growth.

Well-functioning financial systems are important in achieving sustained economic growth. They play a crucial role in channeling household savings into the corporate sector and allocating investment funds among firms.

One cannot see any world leader who has got a grip on the financial markets these days. They're too big, too fast. I think that's quite scary.

I don’t care a damn about stocks and bonds, but I don’t want to see them go down the first day I am President.

There are some outcomes in finance we don't want, and government should regulate that.

Making economic policy isn't a popularity contest, especially when financial markets are in a panic.

Bailouts may have been more tolerable in the early 1990s when they were rare and their use for a failing bank was uncertain. That is no longer the case.

The Fed cannot levitate markets forever. And when they finally do move, I think we have to be prepared for a considerable amount of turbulence.

The bull market, rising prices, earning lots of money, make it seem as if the good days will never end. When prices are falling and there is a recession, that also feels as though it will last for ever. Politics is the same. People simply can't imagine changing circumstances.

Who would you trust right now? Which bank would you trust? Which investment would you trust? Do you really want to put your money; do you want to suffer more of these losses that we just had? You know, these volatility that we see is just unexplainable by any rational standards. Nobody has any clue about how to explain this, and nobody wants to experience that. So, we hold more money back, we don't necessarily want to invest in the market and by default, people are saving more.

Financial markets ... resent any kind of government interference but they hold a belief deep down that if conditions get really rough the authorities will step in.

America's fiscal future is frightening.

The fate of your paycheck, the fate of your small business should not rest on what side of the bed a Washington bureaucrat wakes up on.

Every time I get accustomed to low volatility, like we were towards the end of the Greenspan era, and we think we have all the levers under the control... something erupts to remind us that the idea that anybody is in control of everything is hubris.

What is important for a central banker is that you have to convey that you know what you are doing.

The lack of a consistent policy from major economies is the main source of volatility.

Whenever global economy is reasonably doing well, the investment flows.

There is little room for complacency, and it is important to guard against sporadic volatility in financial markets.

Crises are inherent to market economies, but managing them is the key to political success, and the media plays a vital role in getting the policy message across.