Henry Paulson Quotes

My preference is for the Federal Reserve to be the systemic risk regulator, because the responsibility for identifying and limiting potential problems is a natural complement to its role in monetary policy.

No country can be complacent in making sure that excessive debt of the household doesn't create excesses and weaknesses in the financial system. Everything is interconnected.

There is a European Central Bank, of course, established and it has the structure similar to the Federal Reserve system, not precisely the same but similar.

The Federal Reserve has a responsibility to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions and to contain systemic risks in financial markets.

The Obama administration's plan is to have the Federal Reserve regulate banks that might pose a 'systemic risk' if they were to fail.

The Congress has had an uneasy relationship with banks and bankers since Alexander Hamilton. It took the United States until 1913 to set up a central bank. The Federal Reserve earned its hard-won independence over years of effort.

Capping the size of American banks won't eliminate the needs of big businesses; it will force them to turn to foreign banks that won't face the same restrictions.

There's no other job in public life that is like chairman of the Fed.

The Fed's independence is critical.

I’ve always been a little nervous about the Fed. Quite frankly, I’m a little nervous about the degree of their independence.

It is the central bank governor, unlike other regulators or government secretaries, who has command over significant policy levers and has to occasionally disagree with the most powerful people in the country.

The Reserve Bank cannot just exist; its ability to say 'no' has to be protected.

No matter how the financial system is set up, no matter what the economic system is, as long as you have people, you're going to have financial crises; you're going to have bubbles that manifest themselves in the financial system.

When it comes to policies of central bankers, the biggest systemic risk we have... are those policies.

I felt that the Fed had always been the agency that picked up the pieces when there was a financial crisis, and it was invented to do exactly that.

Daniel Tarullo has more power of the U.S. banking system than anybody since Alexander Hamilton. That's not an exaggeration, by the way.

The Fed's organization reflects a long-standing desire in American history to ensure that power over our nation's monetary policy and financial system is not concentrated in a few hands, whether in Washington or in high finance or in any single group or constituency.

In the wake of the 2008 recession, Congress and the Obama Administration rightly focused financial regulation on protecting the nation's financial system from itself.

A lot of ambitious code has been written into the law for those and we will have to see if it actually works, if we have another example of a big financial institution going bankrupt.

If we speak about fundamental things, regulation of the rate is actually the function of the main regulator, namely the function of the Central Bank. And it should think of how the economy and industry react, but also of its fundamental tasks in order to ensure the stability of the rate.

In the United States we have, in effect, two governments ... We have the duly constituted Government ... Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution.

The Federal Reserve is not charged with designing or evaluating proposals for housing finance reform. But we are responsible for regulating and supervising banking institutions to ensure their safety and soundness, and more broadly for the stability of the financial system.

My view was that government officials could not sit on the board of the central bank, and I am very happy that has been upheld.

We need a resilient, well-capitalized, well-regulated financial system that is strong enough to withstand even severe shocks and support economic growth by lending through the economic cycle.

I think that is a very important milestone in our economic history that the monetary policy is now determined through a committee process where there are both independent committee members and representation from the RBI.