Yanis Varoufakis Quotes

So it won't be a surprise when the Greek default actually happens and we expect it one way or the other to be relatively soon.

We are mortgaging our future.

Someone has to pick up the tab when people get out of repaying their own debts.

We saw in Greece how dangerous it is if a country has a bigger and bigger debt, and I hope that we will not have a second Greece in our neighbouring country, Italy.

We don't want to give a business that is not going to come through the troubled waters a loan that they can't pay back.

Much of what Germany and France have done in the rescue of Greece has also helped German and French banks, who for a long time were major creditors for Greece and Greek banks.

Deficits are like putting dynamite in the hands of children. They can get out of control very quickly.

I lend people money, but I'd never lend something that would jeopardise a friendship if I didn't get it back.

Korea's early repayment of the full amount of loans from the IMF is a major milestone.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

It is the quality of lending over the quantity of lending.

I think there will be no government bankruptcy in Greece.

If you are in banking and lending, surprise outcomes are likely to be negative for you.

The Greek debt issue, for example, is such a threat because if that country ever defaulted, it might cause some bank that's 'too big to fail' to actually fail.

The Greeks do not have the option of borrowing because nobody will lend to them.

Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier…

If you have 'too big to fail' for cities or for states, and they believe they'll be bailed out, they'll continue to make unwise decisions.

When borrowers anticipate that politicians might cancel their loans, they stop paying.

The very welfare state the Occupy Wall Street protesters so eagerly applaud is what has saddled Greece with colossal debt and left its economy on the brink of collapse, igniting violent protests across the nation.

Modern economies rely on debt, which encourages productivity and growth. But that system of credit requires consequences for debtors who default.

It was very important for us to hear that both European governments and the IMF are going to sustain and augment their commitment to Greece because they don't pursue the debt reduction route. They're actually extending more debt, more loans to Greece.

In Puerto Rico, there has developed a culture of taking out loans and not paying them back. That has ended.

Puerto Rico is a government that is spending money that it doesn't have. What's coming in and what's going out don't match. That is, what they are receiving in taxes is not sufficient to cover the spending that they are taking on. And any entity that does that, whether a family, a business, a government, is going to go broke and bankrupt. They are asking to be given the right to declare bankruptcy, which I think should be an option, as a last resort, if there is no other resource.

The top threat that gets very little focus from Washington these days is what Adm. Mike Mullen identified as the biggest threat to the U.S.: the American debt.

We have a debt the size of our economy, which makes us look a lot like Greece.