Henry Paulson Quotes

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.

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

Businesses have no place being 'too big to fail.'

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

For market discipline to constrain risk effectively, financial institutions must be allowed to fail. Under optimal financial regulatory and financial system infrastructures, such a failure would not threaten the overall system.

I don't think anybody's too big to fail. I think the - I think if what you've got is sort of a large number of institutions who are going to fail, then that ends up affecting the system.

The idea that either individuals or organisations are 'too big to fail' or that the tech and start-up sector is somehow different is wrong.

It is worth noting that 'too big to fail' is not simply about size. A big institution is 'too big' when there is an expectation that government will do whatever it takes to rescue that institution from failure, thus bestowing an effective risk premium subsidy. Reforms to end 'too big to fail' must address the causes of this expectation.

We must learn the lessons of the 2008 crash: no company should be able to become too big to fail.

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

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

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

Too big to fail is too big.

We have institutions that have been allowed to become too big to fail because we had all kinds of flaws in our financial infrastructure, in the whole way over-the-counter derivatives work.

What we have to find is the right level of regulation of our financial system so that it has the incentive to invest in things, but at the same time, it is sufficiently regulated so it can't get in the kind of trouble that we have seen in the past and we have seen recently.

Limiting the destructive risk-taking by large financial firms and banks which are 'too big to fail' is needed.

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.

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

The idea that it's smart to allow Wall Street firms, with this "too big to fail" imprimatur, to become hedge funds again - it's unconscionable. You're essentially saying we're going to take some elites in our society and let them roll the bones in the marketplace, and if it works out they get rich, and if it doesn't work out the taxpayer comes in again. That seems absolutely crazy to me. That seems to be where they're headed. I mean, maybe they're not and I'm wrong. Maybe they'll do sensible things. It's hard to know! There doesn't seem to be a plan.

The Federal Reserve has always recognized the importance of allowing markets to work, and government oversight of financial firms will never be fully effective without the aid of strong market discipline.

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

Bailing out every bank that fails makes the system riskier, not safer.

I'm probably a believer in abandoning too-big-to-fail firms or breaking them up in some way so that the system can try to take care of itself. I imagine you're not going to get there, and therefore, I suspect regulation is what's going to be required.

This crisis exposed very significant problems in the financial systems of the United States and some other major economies. Innovation got too far out in front of the knowledge of risk.

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.