Henry Paulson Quotes

When a population saves a lot, the funds are invested outside the country as well as inside. If the Japanese invest in the United States, it pushes their exchange rate down and makes their manufacturing more competitive.

I see tremendous imbalance in the world. A very uneven playing field, which has gotten tilted very badly. I consider it unstable. At the same time, I don't exactly see what is going to reverse it.

Economically, unfair trade will benefit nobody in the long run, as poorer countries will be bled totally dry and will become unable to produce anything.

The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.

Unless the trade deficit shrinks, the combination of the trade deficit and the interest and dividend payments to foreigners will grow ever more rapidly.

We are mortgaging our future.

Since our economy is closely allied with that of foreign countries, not one of us can be indifferent to what consequences these disturbances can have at home and abroad.

Our fiat currency is under increasing stress with our large and growing trade deficits. We have a federal deficit that is calculated in the trillions when we take into account the net present value of the future Social Security and Medicaid obligations we are creating today.

I think the IMF helped to detonate the Indonesian crisis.

China saves too much, produces too much, sells too much to Americans and consumes too little.

We need the Chinese to - you know, spend more, save less - consume more and not be so focused on exports. There are big changes we need in the world.

The degree of leverage now being reversed is staggering, and the underlying global imbalances - notably between the savers and the spenders - will require long and painful adjustment.

China, Japan, and Asia in general have been happy to hold U.S. debt instruments in recent decades, but they will not prop up our spending habits forever…. The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation.

The global economy is unruly.

The soil of no country is rich enough to attain a great mass of wealth, merely by the exchange and exportation of its own natural product.

Experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence.

We must be cognizant of the fact that the absence of economic rationality and perpetual political instability in our societies prevent us from fully benefiting from our resources as well as capabilities. In the extreme case, we find ourselves in devastating wars. Our conflict-ridden geography has substantially undercut our ability to develop economically. Natural wealth, including oil revenues has been wasted and the focus of attention has been other than human development

Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars.

Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier…

In several quarters in the 2000s, if you added up all the private savings of everyone in the United States, it was less than nothing. You can't sustain that as a driver of growth.

Trump will fail even in his proclaimed goal of reducing the trade deficit, which is determined by the disparity between domestic savings and investment.

A global economy that is levering up, while unable to generate enough aggregate demand to achieve potential growth, is on a risky path.

You look at the U.S. budget deficit, and you cannot help but feel that this is a serious accident waiting to happen. And not just a serious U.S. accident, but a serious global accident.

The balance of trade is an article of faith.

When America's creditors consider our behavior they see total fiscal irresponsibility. They see a deluded country that acts as if it is a privilege for foreigners to lend to it, and a deluded country that believes that foreigners will continue to accumulate US debt until the end of time. The fact of the matter is that the US is bankrupt.