Benn Steil Quotes

In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors.

My real adversary has no name, no face, no party. It will never be elected, yet it governs - the adversary is the world of finance.

Can we prevent an almost complete collapse of the financial structure of modern capitalism? With no financial leadership left in the world and profound intellectual error as to causes and cures prevailing in the responsible seats of power, one begins to wonder and to doubt.... The financial and political authorities of the world have lacked the courage or the conviction at each stage of the decline to apply the available remedies in sufficiently drastic doses; and by now they have allowed the collapse to reach a point where the whole system may have lost its resiliency and its capacity for a rebound.

The only way that we can reduce our financial dependence on the inflow of funds from the rest of the world is to reduce our trade deficit.

As an economist specializing in the global economy, international trade and debt, I have spent most of my career helping others make big decisions - prime ministers, presidents and chief executives - and so I'm all too aware of the risks and dangers of poor choices in the public as well as the private sphere.

You always want to try to make something new, and, of course, America is the world leader in economics today.

There is not an alternative to the US as the engine for growth.

Nearly every one of the foreign financial crises of recent decades has led to an increase in the U. S. trade deficit.

The International Monetary Fund is the doctor to sick economies.

The need to promote the adoption of a global currency as a vital element in the integration of the global economy is self-evident.

The American economy must be altered to put business back in the driver's seat. The correct role for finance is to support job creation.

If the Asian financial crisis had the impact of accelerating China's rise, the transatlantic financial crisis has had the effect of accelerating Germany's rise.

To finance this trade deficit, the U.S. has to borrow from the rest of the world or sell American assets like stocks, businesses, and real estate to the rest of the world.

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, in hosting the G20 summit and in the budget, must display the same boldness in tackling the instability at home that they do in promoting a worldwide answer to the global meltdown.

It's time to create an Economic Growth Code whose purpose is to fix and grow the economy, not redistribute massive amounts of wealth.

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.

President Roosevelt's leadership put the world on notice that the United States of America - with the freest, most dynamic economy the world had ever seen - was open for business.

I have full confidence in the IMF. It is a very strong international institution.

We are the number one economy in the world, and we ought to continue to pursue those kinds of policies that ensure that we maintain that position, like innovation and like technology and like education and like just research and development and discovery.

Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.

We need the Chinese to - you know, spend more, save less - consume more and not be so focused on exports. There are big changes we need in the world.

If anybody ran a business like that they would be out of business quickly, and Barack Obama's leadership is driving this business, the United States of America, toward a fiscal cliff.

By providing outstanding economic leadership, this country can wage its attack successfully - and can thereby build the foundations of a peaceful world.

The reserve currency role seems to add prestige to an area and some people in Europe have talked about the desirability of the euro becoming an international reserve currency.

America knows it has got to deal with its deficit problems so that it, too, can promise it is making its proper and best contributions to the world economy.