Henry C. K. Liu Quotes

Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It

As much as the banking system may not be terribly popular, it is an essential part of the economy.

Banks hold deposits and savings entrusted to them by individuals, by businesses, by governments and by central banks. They put that money to work, helping people to buy homes, for example, or lending to businesses to invest in expansion.

On private transactions, I'll just go very quickly now, a major difference between the United States and Euroland is that in Europe banks are much more important in financial transactions than in the United States.

Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college.

Banks may be considered as the primary source of "paper speculation," and only the foster the spirit of gambling in paper, in lands, in canal schemes, town lot schemes, manufacturing schemes and whatever could hit the madness of the day.

All the banks in Christendom could not control money.

Banks can’t put their money in the bank. They have to lend it out.

Mexico has very solid financial institutions, with good levels of capitalism, but they’re not lending much.

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.

Debt is the lifeblood of finance; with the rise of the securities-and-trading portion of the [financial] industry came a rise in all kinds [of debt], both public and private.

If you think about it: a big bank in any country, what is it? Really, as an investment, it's a warrant on economy.

The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today.

The fundamental problem with banks is what it's always been: they're in the business of banking, and banking, whether plain vanilla or incredibly sophisticated, is inherently risky.

We reward people for making money off money, and moving money around and dividing up mortgages a thousand times over, selling it to China... and it becomes this shell game.

I'm not afraid of having big banks.

… clean up thoroughly unwholesome conditions in the field of investment. In this we have had assistance from many bankers and businessmen, most of whom recognize the past evils in the banking system, in the sale of securities, in the deliberate encouragement of stock gambling, in the sale of unsound mortgages and in many other ways in which the public lost billions of dollars. They saw that without changes in the policies and methods of investment there could be no recovery of public confidence in the security of savings.

We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it

Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing

If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve.

A striking feature of financial service activities during the past few decades is that the financial transactions essential to the operation of the 'real' economy has become increasingly dwarfed by speculative activity.

Everyone failed to appreciate that our sophisticated, hypermodern, highly hedged, derivative-based financial system—how ultimately fragile it really was.

We have solid financial institutions, but they lent very little. So with the financial reform, we wanted to push them to lend more and to encourage the development bank to create instruments for lending mainly for micro and medium-sized companies.

The important source of finance is now commercial papers, bonds, and so on.

I've been focused on the West Coast economy and being a banker and lending in these markets.