Henry Paulson Quotes

Banking should be boring..

I come from a state with many sound, responsible banks.

I'm not afraid of having big banks.

Strong banks want strong regulation.

Banks should decide on dividend increases and share buybacks after receiving the results of stress tests, when they know how much capital regulators wish them to hold.

There was a time when "sound as a dollar" was a description, not a joke.

I don't get in a position to be frightened. I don't do anything dangerous, and I always pay my bills.

One way to make sure you don't lose assets in the future is to streamline your accounts. Consider using one bank for all your banking needs and one brokerage firm for all your investments.

As long as there is cash, and the economy is running, all is well. But as a bank, we'll have to test, experiment, try a hundred different things. A few may work, a few may fail, but we have to experiment and try.

It's 85 million dollars and they got to be really careful because they are going to need me.

I think the market should reward banks that have been transparent in recognising their problems. I think the tendency of banks to hide the problem assets over a period of three or four years should not be allowed.

I want to work in a bank, definitely. Hopefully, my acting career will go well. But if it doesn't, I go to a bank. If it does, then even at the age of 40, I will still go to a bank, but I have to work in a bank, because I'm really fond of taxation and accounts and investments and all of that. So I will do it. At some point, I will, yes.

At the heart of banking is a suicidal strategy. Banks take money from the public or each other on call, skim it for their own reward and then lock the rest up in volatile, insecure and illiquid loans that at times they cannot redeem without public aid.

Ty Tryon made a lot of money after turning pro, but he might not have been ready. I don't want to make a lot of money for a couple of months and then not be ready.

We suffer more … when we fall from a better to a worse situation, than we ever enjoy when we rise from a worse to a better. Security, therefore, is the first and the principal object of prudence.

Securitization was one of the most brilliant financial innovations of the 20th century. It freed up a lot of capital. If it had been done responsibly, it would have been a wondrous thing because nothing is more stable, there’s nothing safer, than the American mortgage market.... It worked for years. But then people realized they could scam it.

it is easier … to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity.

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from these rules, in consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.

If the large banks can do this without breaking the rules, then the rules should be revamped.

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].

We are optimistic with respect to thrifts .... I don't think that there is any cause for undue concern and I would reject any suggestion that we are in the midst of some sort of a major systemic problem with respect to any element of our financial services industry.

When you have millions of small companies using your site and billions of dollars in transactions every day, the government cares….They care that I can unstabalize the country.

We have put in place policies through supervision and regulation that has greatly enhanced the safety and soundness of the banking system.

Regulators around the world have achieved an unprecedented level of collaboration since the financial crisis to create global standards for financial institutions. American regulators have largely viewed these international standards as a floor, and imposed higher standards on U.S. institutions.

The investment banks should either choose to be regulated as banks or should arrange to conduct their affairs to not require the stop-gap support of the Federal Reserve.