Warren Buffett Quotes

The idea of being Treasury secretary in the abstract appealed to me, but my initial inclination was that it wasn't right for me to take that step.

The Treasury Department has a critical role to play in helping to set the direction of a U.S. and global economy, a role that reaches back to America's founding.

It makes a difference who the treasury secretary is.

I would say it's more important who the treasury secretary is than who the vice president is. If you want to have a debate here, I'd like a debate between potential treasury secretaries than the vice presidential debate.

I am specifically concerned about the idea that the legislative process is one that gets characterized the way it is as the 'fiscal cliff.' At the end of the day, the United States is the biggest economy in the world, and the dollar is the reserve currency in the world. I think it behooves us to act in a much more responsible way.

I have spoken about deficits, and I think deficits are important because they address broad economic and financial stability. We need to talk about that.

In the past, Federal Reserve chairmen have not generally gone directly to the public.

The truth is that the United States doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one.

Fiscal discipline is a priority in Romania, and we have already proven we are committed and able to make real progress in this area.

Chairman Greenspan is, of course, a master.

It is the policy of the federal government to use all resources at its disposal to make our financial system stronger.

The debate we won't be having is whether or not the debt ceiling should be raised. We will not have a situation where people will hold the American economy hostage in order to achieve a specific agenda - at least not until 2013. So we think that is incredibly important as a matter of economic good.

What we collectively decide about how to bail out our economy, how to pull our economy out of a ditch and what rules we put in place to make sure this problem does not happen again, will shape our country for the next 50 years. This is it.

When all things are considered, it will be found best for the Nation to leave the Borrowers and the Lender to make their own Bargains, according to the Circumstances they lie under

Three Presidents served under Andrew Mellon in his 12 years in office.

When I was the finance minister, I got on well with the RBI Governor.

The RBI governor post is very high in the Warrant of Precedence and requires a patriotic and unconditional commitment to our nation.

Hank Paulson, obviously, had spent his career on Wall Street, had a deep knowledge of the Street, and also was a very forceful personality, had a very good relationship with the president, and was in a very different place, for example, than Ben Bernanke, who is an academic, quiet guy: spent most of his time thinking about monetary policy.

The few emerging economies that have avoided booms and busts have done so by adhering to sound policy frameworks.

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

Countries that are occasionally immature in their ability to manage their economic affairs as well as they should - and that includes most of them - are going to find that the world is at risk.

I firmly believe that the U.S. has to honor its debt.

Central bankers tend to be conservative by nature.

I think some people don't truly understand the situation, and they think, you know, the debt limit, it doesn't really mean anything, and they don't understand the implications on the U.S. economy and on the global markets.

Anyone who thinks that the last 80 years, ever since FDR took us off gold, have been a doomed venture, that strikes me as kind of cranky.