Anne Applebaum Quotes

We have a debt the size of our economy, which makes us look a lot like Greece.

For the next three years, we're going to see different economies work out different problems. For European economies, especially Greece, it would be through default.

As austerity measures were foisted upon Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and other highly indebted countries, growth was rendered even more elusive, aggravating unemployment

Ireland, once an impoverished backwater from which generations fled, conjured an economic miracle…. After 2007, the party ended in a morass of insolvent banks, bad mortgages, and unpaid public debt, ultimately sending the proudly independent country begging to the International Monetary Fund.

The interest on our debt is going to collapse this country.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

There's no more place in the euro zone for well-meaning laxness when dealing with deficits and failings. If the demands on Greece aren't taken seriously, we'll get stuck in quicksand. In the worst case, this would make it acceptable for one tranche to not be paid out. It is in the Greeks own interest not to test that.

If Spain goes under, Italy will come under even more scrutiny.

Europe is on an economic collision course with reality.

Observers and even some officials raise questions about the future of Greece as part of the Eurozone, while the Eurozone itself struggles to deal with fundamental flaws at the heart of its architecture.

We saw in Greece how dangerous it is if a country has a bigger and bigger debt, and I hope that we will not have a second Greece in our neighbouring country, Italy.

The Mexican debt crisis, Latin American debt crisis, the crises of the 1990s, the Wall Street stock market crash, and other events should have reminded us, and did remind us, that financial instability remains a concern, remains a problem.

On any measure, Spain's bank rescue has been a disaster. A hundred million euros have been added to the national debt, ten-year bonds are at a record high and the country's credit rating has been downgraded three notches.

Greece isn't a democracy now it's run through a troika - three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and can't do.

Greece's debts are all denominated in euros, but it isn't clear who holds how much of those debts. For that reason, the consequences of a national bankruptcy would be incalculable. Greece is just as systemically important as a major bank.

So it won't be a surprise when the Greek default actually happens and we expect it one way or the other to be relatively soon.

If we continue to allow the federal government to live beyond its means, we will all soon have to live beneath ours.

The reality for us in America is that we will never get out of debt with more than 15 million people out of work.

Despite the deep reforms we are making, traders and speculators have forced interest rates on Greek bonds to record highs.

Not all Greeks are ready to do whatever is necessary to stay in the euro.

The World Bank is now the biggest culprit in the debt crisis.

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child.

I do not want America to default on its debt.

The average standard of living of the average American is going to go down. That is the only way we can cope with our debt and trade deficit problems.

The best way for the Government to maintain its credit is to pay as it goes—not by resorting to loans, but by keeping out of debt.