Iveta Radicova Quotes

Right now, a majority of the debt is owed to foreign interests, Japan being the largest purchaser of government debt today, soon to be surpassed by China as the number one purchaser of our debt in this Nation.

One needs a comprehensive concept that decides just how much debt states like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy can sustainably bear.

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.

Greece's debts are all denominated in euros, but it isn't clear who holds how much of those debts. For that reason, the consequences of a national bankruptcy would be incalculable. Greece is just as systemically important as a major bank.

When I work with countries struggling to pay for budgets or finance trade deficits, I reflect on how Americans do not spend a moment considering the unique advantages of being able to issue bonds and print money freely.

For the next three years, we're going to see different economies work out different problems. For European economies, especially Greece, it would be through default.

The unique danger today is the possibility that we may face longer-term stagnation as a consequence of relying too heavily on borrowed money.

And then you might decide that the country can just spend maybe years or decades to regain that credit, or maybe give that county the support, the financial support that the market is not willing not do.

Solving a problem created by debt... by creating more debt is a fool's errand.

If Spain goes under, Italy will come under even more scrutiny.

Municipal debt outstanding doubled in the past 10 years. And in the past 30 years, the U.S. has been in real economic nirvana.

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

For highly indebted governments, low interest rates are critical to keep debt levels sustainable and ease pressure to restructure debt and recapitalize banks. The shift to a high sovereign-debt-yield equilibrium would make it impossible to achieve fiscal balance.

I believe Europe is burning financially. Europe's problems are not going to go away. They are so structural. Yet, our problems are right behind them. We cannot just look at Europe.

When you're dealing with a bankrupt sovereign - like the U.S. government - you're dealing with a very powerful wounded bear. You have to be very careful because you can't know what the beast is going to do.

Deflation can be particularly dangerous when a financial system is shaky, with household and corporate balance sheets in poor shape and banks undercapitalized and heavily burdened with bad loans.

The Obama administration's large and sustained increases in debt raise the specter of another financial crisis and large future tax increases, further chilling business investment and job creation.

On any measure, Spain's bank rescue has been a disaster. A hundred million euros have been added to the national debt, ten-year bonds are at a record high and the country's credit rating has been downgraded three notches.

I think the facts reveal that the European partners have taken extraordinary measures to help Greece address its problems.

To investors, job creation is a second-order effect. Market participants care first about interest rates, exchange rates, bond prices and the one great factor that affects all three: the long-term solvency of a bond company called the U.S. government.

In both the U.S. and Europe, the budget and balance sheet numbers do not work. When 'off-balance sheet' promises are taken into account, the U.S. and most countries of the Euro zone are insolvent.

The national debt is totally unlike a family budget for about a gazillion reasons, not the least of which being that families cannot raise money by fiat or deflate the size of their debt unilaterally and that family members die instead of existing infinitely.

Total borrowing has imploded. Private borrowing has collapsed. And, in effect, the Treasury Department is the last borrower left standing.

Spain is facing an economic situation of extreme difficulty, I repeat, of extreme difficulty, and anyone who doesn't understand that is fooling themselves.

The Government has to stop borrowing as much money; if we don't, quite frankly New Zealand will be downgraded and interest rates will go up for all New Zealanders.