James Surowiecki Quotes

Our purpose, as we face these challenges, remains clear - fair and orderly markets that allow for efficient capital formation, while protecting the interests of investors.

Trust is central to an economy that works.

Compelling large banks to hold more capital reduces their risk of failure, but as the last financial crisis [the Meltdown of 2008] demonstrated, during a wide-spread panic, investors and lenders lose all faith in the values banks have assigned to their assets, and many mistrust the banks that claim to have enough capital.

Our financial markets work best when they are competitive, fair, and transparent.

Without doubt, timely and democratic access to financial and market information contributes to smoothly functioning financial markets.

You cannot have fairness unless you have transparency…We don’t know that is going on inside those boxes … we could have a meltdown [in the entire economy].

there are times when we need to step in to make sure that competition works the way it should. By doing that, we help the market to work fairly, because competition gives consumers the power to demand a fair deal. It means that companies know that if they cannot offer good prices or the service that's expected, well, the customers will go somewhere else.

The TMPG is the place where market participants recognize and address their responsibilities to each other.

Laws are made to protect the trusting as well as the suspicious.

It should strengthen investors' confidence. This is done through transparency, high quality financial reports, and a standardized economic market. This is not just for China, but also for the world market as a whole.

You are as safe with me as you would be in the Bank of England.

It has been an incredibly rewarding experience to work with so many dedicated SEC staff who strive every day to protect investors and ensure our markets operate with integrity.

The challenge for capitalism is that the things that breed trust also breed the environment for fraud.

Markets are a good thing, and they are the best way of ensuring we have fairness.

Confidence is as essential in permanent relations between Governments as it is between great commercial houses.

Strong banks want strong regulation.

Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence.” Cascading rumors are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumors. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumors, be robust in the face of them.

You want to show your people that you value them, and you're not going to hurt them just to get a little more money in the short term. Not furloughing people breeds loyalty. It breeds a sense of security. It breeds a sense of trust.

If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy.

Trust is the glue that holds everything together.

The most essential factor to economic recovery today [1932] is the restoration of confidence.

This economy doesn't work well without the lubrication of credit and trust.

I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence.

All people would really want peace and all would want to be sure that they would not be taken advantage of.

A free market was never meant to be a free licence to take whatever you can get, however you can get it.