Johanna Siguroardottir Quotes

Most certainly it was a very wrong step to Crush the Private Bank, and set up this Publick Bank in its place

Governments should ensure the adequate capitalization of domestic banks, so that these banks won’t have to be bailed out by the IMF [International Monetary Fund].

I was secretary of the Treasury in 2008. In that role, I had the privilege to work with many talented men and women in government and the private sector who labored to pull our nation back from the brink of disaster.

The TARP program was nevertheless necessary to keep banks from collapsing in a cascade of failures.

The recovery of the banks is what happens when you reduce competition, lend money to them at zero interest rates, allow them to gamble. That particular style of restoration actually inhibits the economic recovery.

When government is... bailing out banks... we have every good reason to be alarmed.

Throughout the 19th century, when there was a laissez-faire mentality and insufficient regulation, you had one crisis after another. Each crisis brought about some reform. That is how central banking developed.

As long as the big banks are allowed to remain big, their political leverage over Washington will remain big. And as long as their political leverage remains big, the taxpayer and economic tab for the next mess they create will be big.

Taxpayers have put more than $24 trillion on the line to resuscitate Wall Street after the economic meltdown of last year. With the help of this massive taxpayer support, the nation's largest banks are posting record profits.

I started out in public service in 1998 after the Asian financial crisis of '97.

I hope that the United States would cooperate with the partners to reduce its debt. The debt is a problem. The debt is with you, but unfortunately, the debt is not only with you but with us and with the rest of the world because we all, one way or another, are dependent on the dollar.

The Federal Reserve, the Treasury, all the regulator agencies - if there's a problem of the financial mechanism in society, the only one to fix it is government. They've got a legitimate role.

I would like to thank the Cypriot people for their maturity and collectedness shown in their interactions with the Cypriot Banks.

Financial crises require governments.

No one suggested Lehman deserved to be saved. But the argument has been made that the crisis might have been less severe if it had been saved, because Lehman's failure created remarkable uncertainty in the market as investors became confused about the role of the government and whether it was picking winners and losers.

I'm really concerned that too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial.

The powers vested in the Federal Reserve Board seen to me highly dangerous especially where there is political control of the Board.

Too big to fail is too big.

Canada did not have a financial crises just because the Canadian Government said “No” to their bankers.

Since 1840 the United States has had 12 systemic banking crises and Canada has had none …. It all has to do with politics.

Should we think about separating the investment banks from the commercial banks, a new Glass-Steagall? I would be really excited to see that. I think it would be great for the economy.

The idea that the largest banks in the world would simultaneously fail, need government support, government guarantees, and/or government intervention to survive was not in my range of realistic scenarios.

I think the bailouts in 2008 were wrong. And I think, you look in hindsight, it was a lot of misinformation that was presented about the bailouts of the banks in the West.

Bailouts may have been more tolerable in the early 1990s when they were rare and their use for a failing bank was uncertain. That is no longer the case.

Barack Obama was first elected after a period of profound failure by elite and government institutions, from finance to foreign policy to Hurricane Katrina, and his first term immediately and unapologetically enacted a flurry of government solutions.