Jon Huntsman Jr. Quotes

Banks too big to fail are too big to be regulated or controlled by the Federal Government.

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

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.

When the banks grow to or when these financial institutions grow to such a size that they can't sustain themselves, or what have you, they have problems, economic problems, or financial problems, they shouldn't be able to look back to you and I, the taxpayer, to be bailed out.

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.

If a bank's too big so that it can't fail without hurting our economy, well then, it's too big.

In truth, it's not the shareholders of the American International Group who benefited most from its bailout; they were mostly wiped out. The great beneficiaries have been the creditors and counterparties at the other end of A.I.G.'s derivatives deals - firms like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Barclays and UBS.

We need to think deeply about whether we can sustain banks that are not only too big to fail, but potentially too big to bail.

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.

Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief

No private enterprises should be allowed to think of itself as too big to fail. No taxpayer bailouts should allow executives or stockholders to relax.

You can't have some institutions that are protected by the law, not allowed to fail, and not held to account, and all the other companies in America are allowed to fail. You can't have equal justice under law and too big to fail.

Not one criminal charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with the 2008 crisis. And in fact, it gets worse. No bonuses and none of their equity was taken.

Where human lives are concerned, time is always short, yet the world has witnessed the vast resources that governments can draw upon to rescue financial institutions deemed 'too big to fail.'

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.

The financial crisis of 2008-09 was in large part the result of the so-called 'success' of people who did not understand their fiduciary duty. This kind of 'success' is extremely harmful to all of society.

No single housing finance institution should be too big to fail.

No bank should be allowed to become so big that it can blackmail governments.

I won't dispute that bankers' privileged treatment in the 2008 crash merits populist scorn. But unfortunately, without a bank bailout, there probably would have been a worldwide depression.

As we try to make the financial system safer, we must inevitably confront the problem of moral hazard.

What Obama is saying is simple: The United States has become Too Big To Fail.

I felt terrified as the chief regulator that I would start a run on my own industry

The Commission concludes that, as massive losses spread throughout the financial system …, many institutions failed, or would have failed but for government bailouts. As panic gripped the market, credit markets seized up, trading ground to a halt, and the stock market plunged. Lack of transparency contributed greatly to the crisis: the exposures of financial institutions to risky mortgage assets and other potential losses were unknown to market participants, and indeed many firms did not know their own exposures.

The regulators can’t do it. These institutions are just too large and complex.

The financial system is drifting back to business as usual a bit to quickly …. We are starting to see risky behavior of the sort that people were scared of after the crises