Paul Samuelson Quotes

Credit is of pernicious consequence to that Nation, that uses or encourages it beyond Nature.

The biggest enemy of the United States is not some terrorist hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility

At some point, there will be some other financial crisis. It's in the nature of a capitalist system.

How about we all stop paying our mortgages! It's a moral hazard.

We need to resist the temptation to create more entitlements and more entitlements, which is one of the reasons we are heading recklessly toward fiscal crisis.

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.

I'll fight with every breath in my body to stop the out of control spending and debt that are bankrupting our kids and grandkids.

I think it's been, you know, kind of like a tragic play to this point. But at this point, I think it's clear, and will be clear to the majority of the Congress. I think it's clear to the American people that there is only one countervailing force to a world where financial institutions are trying to sell instruments every day and where credit has dried up, and that's the United States Treasury.

This is the national equivalent of having no savings, your credit card maxed out, you didn't renew your insurance, and now your house has burned down. The only way we can start to solve this is rolling back the tax cuts for the rich, which would save about $70 billion.

I do think that the banking system is now in the most perilous state we've seen in over 70 years.

No one in Washington realizes you can't borrow money endlessly.

With government deregulation and the triumph of financial liberalization, the dangers of systemic risks, the possibility of a financial tsunami, sharply increased.

I think the world is becoming more global. Because of economics, you have to feed the demographics that are buying your product.

I do think there are ways to increase wages significantly, even in a global era. But you have to take voters and consumers with you on this journey - and that involves a tremendous, and long-term, public education campaign.

By rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.

I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.

One thing I will not compromise over is whether or not Congress should pay the tab for a bill they've already racked up. If Congress refuses to give the United States the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy could be catastrophic.

We Americans think we are pretty good! We want to build a house, we cut down some trees. We want to build a fire, we dig a little coal. But when we run out of all these things, then we will find out just how good we really are.

Institutions of the newer participants in global finance had not been tested, until recently...recent crisis have underscored certain financial structure vulnerabilities that are not readily assuaged in the short run.

I was an advocate of the deregulation movement and I made - along with a lot of other smart people - a fundamental mistake. The financial industry undergirded the entire economy and if it is made riskier by deregulation and collapses in widespread bankruptcies as what happened in 2008, the entire economy freezes because it runs on credit.

We are taking a greater chance of having another crash at a time when the world is less capable of bearing the cost.

Everybody is in trouble, including the up-and-coming economic miracles of China, Brazil or India.

I think the Greek people, although it is difficult and challenging and the politics of it I know are not good, should appreciate the fact that in this global economy, the Greek economy was going to have to go through some structural reforms.

I got plenty of guesses wrong on things in the past as well. I don't want to pretend I have some great insight... But when the global financial crisis came along in 2008 it was scary times if you were in the middle of building $5 billion buildings. It wasn't perfect... I think that I am the luckiest person in Australia.

I don't see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem. I think it's going to be largely contained.