Bill Owens Quotes

That's what we were doing for the last twenty years, telling everybody to adopt a raw capitalism with no safety nets, no redistributive mechanisms…. I think we have to find ways to spread the benefits of global markets beyond just the small group of market-dominant minorities and foreign investors. We need to find ways to redistribute the wealth, whether it's property title and giving poor people property, land reform.... Redistributive mechanisms are tough to have if you have so much corruption.

I remain dedicated to building an economy that works for every American and every community. I remain committed to ensuring our security at home while also ensuring we lead the world in improving security around the globe.

The investor knows quite well that we don't have anymore the widespread terrorism here in Peru.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.

The 21st Century has begun as an era of uncertainty, with a heightened focus on security and public safety.

'Plutocracy.' It has a perfect nuance: chilly, inaccessible, icy-rich.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us - especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

The issue of wealth inequality is ... the great moral issue of our time.

The prince should try to prevent too great an inequality of wealth .... prevent the wealth of the multitude from being hoarded by a few.

Taxes on acquired wealth would be the fairest solution. But such taxes have met an invincible resistance among the possessors, who are the most powerful. … The selfishness of possessing classes is not reducible. We have to adopt to it.

For the good of Spain, I should like there to be rather fewer rich people and rather fewer poor.

It is not the difficulty of the problem which we have; it is the fact that the rich people of this country -- and by rich people I mean the super-rich -- will not allow us to solve the problems, or rather the one little problem that is afflicting this country, because in order to cure all of our woes it is necessary to scale down the big fortunes, that we may scatter the wealth to be shared by all of the people.

it must be right to suggest that all countries should use their resources so as to advance the right to development for their people in an equitable manner and that all countries should cooperate for the mutual achievement of the right to development. The alternative to such a policy framework is a Darwinian world of market-oriented capitalism with no social or human rights safety nets. How can developing countries survive in such a world?

We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

Around the world, elites are making money. There are rich people everywhere! And they don’t contribute much to the development of their own countries.

We have to stop allowing economics to be used as a trump card. Capitalism is like math. It is amoral. It is good at producing wealth; it's bad at distributing wealth. Unless it operates within a moral framework it will produce an unjust society.

No country now in transition will be able to accommodate demands for either economic security or social justice anytime soon.

The greatest issue before the people—the question of special privilege and unequal distribution of wealth.

Even oil wealth will not insulate a country from modernity forever.

Since Mill, in 1848, wrote his chapter on the future of the working classes, the question of the distribution of wealth has be-come of still greater importance. We cannot look round on the political phenomena of to-day without seeing that this question is at the root of them. We see the perplexity in which men stand, and the divisions springing up in our great political parties, because of the uncertainty of politicians how to grapple with it.

Competition has brought about two great opposing opinions; one that Government should do nothing, the other that it should do everything. The first arises from the contemplation of the immense wealth heaped up under a system of unimpeded individual action, and of the extraordinary folly and selfishness of the customs and legislation that controlled such action in the past. The second arises from the sufferings which unimpeded individualism has brought upon the working classes, who cry out that Government is bound to protect them from misery and starvation

What happens in Davos stays in Davos.

We need to invest in healthcare, in education, in the sciences. And in so doing, we will tackle one of the most intractable problems we face, which is gross wealth inequality. We can't fight climate change without dealing with inequality in our countries and between our countries.

The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror, war, and economic calamity. It is our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

Rather than engineering our economies solely to maximise GDP, Africa's business and political leaders must build economies explicitly designed to end poverty and inequality.