David Wessel Quotes

I believe and still believe that the Chinese government puts great weight on the experience of the Bank in terms of development.

If we don't get a grip on government spending, there will be no growth.

In China anything less than 6% growth is a recession meaning that it also causes financial problems and it's disruptive and it's a problem.

People have put a lot of faith in the government's ability to get growth going in China. People have this, what I think, illusion that there are six people in China who really have their hand on every button. And what we're learning is, it's a very big economy and they're not that good at it.

In China, it was always said that a double-digit rate of growth would be dangerous. Now, the country has a growth rate of 6.9 percent and suddenly that is supposed to be a catastrophe for the global economy.

We're in a tightening cycle and the reason is the economy is growing, there's no expectation that the global economy and the Polish economy as a consequence could slow down dramatically.

The experience of the '90s, whether it's the '94 peso crisis or the '97 crisis in Asia, the '98 crisis, even the 2001 crisis, is that we recovered pretty readily. There wasn't great consequence.

Listen, I wish economic growth only went in one direction. It doesn't. There are economic downturns. They're painful, they're harmful, and they hurt families.

Investors should be cautiously positioned as the global economy and markets face major uncertainties. The downgrade will be a further headwind to growth and job creation in the U.S.

As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession.

No, I've always been impressed with the tremendous resilience of the American economy. I think over the years, over the decades, it's demonstrated this tremendous ability to take severe body blows, if you will, and bounce back.

How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?

After several trillion dollars of stimulation by the Obama Administration and the Fed, one might think the economy would be chugging along at a pretty good clip. But, it just isn't so, and the light at the end of the tunnel is pretty dim. Just ask a small business owner.

There is no clear sign that the economy is turning the corner in a meaningful way.

If we don't get this economy going, the numbers that represent this stimulus package are going to be small compared to the loss of revenue to the federal government for our economy.

If the American government can't stand behind the dollar, the world's benchmark currency, then the global financial system will very likely enter a new era in which there is much less trade and much less economic growth. It would be, by most accounts, the largest self-imposed financial disaster in history.

During an economic slowdown, one needs to be cautious, but I think it's equally important to not get sucked into the vortex of defensive thinking.

It's going to be difficult to stimulate the real economy in the U.S. at a faster rate than 2 percent and perhaps even less if we have that fiscal cliff in December or January 2013.

Obama's explanation for the slowdown in economic growth is that the public sector is hurting, and that's where Washington must step in and act.

Our first goal is to stop the recession and start with recovery.

Since China embraced Deng Xiaoping's reforms on 22 December 1978, China has experimented with different exchange-rate regimes. Until 1994, the yuan was in an ever-depreciating phase against the U.S. dollar.

I don't think it's the end of the world even if we have a recession. We'll pull back out of it again. No big deal.

The Federal Reserve's job is to take away the punch bowl just when the party gets going.

Economists are very good at saying that something cannot go on forever, but not so good at saying when it will stop.

This crash is not going to have much effect on business.