John Redwood Quotes

A contingent bailout policy - implicit or explicit - must be coupled with some regulation of what banks can and cannot do. For example, a ban on lending to uncreditworthy customers might well make sense.

The investment banks should either choose to be regulated as banks or should arrange to conduct their affairs to not require the stop-gap support of the Federal Reserve.

We need sobriety, rationality, and civility in the discussions on the regulation of financial institutions so that the banks can return in a robust manner to their central role in funding the economy.

If we want the banks to lend - and we all do - if we want the economy to expand - and we all do - do you really want to start confining the banks in their ability to make profits in order to generate more capital to lend out to the people?

Banks operate like a man who either wears his trousers round his chest, stifling breathing, as now, or round his ankles, exposing his assets. We want their trousers tied round their middle: steady lending growth; particularly to productive British business, especially small scale enterprise.

Banks are concerned the central bank is imposing too many regulations. If the trend continues, we'll swing to heavy regulation. We need to have balanced regulation to encourage the economy.

The Federal Reserve has a responsibility to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions and to contain systemic risks in financial markets.

A banker who is allowed to borrow money at X and loan it out at X plus Y will just go crazy and do too much of it if the civilization doesn't have rules that prevent it.

You have safety and soundness as primary purpose of the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and the other agencies which control banking regulation.

I mean, everyone agrees with stress tests for banks. I mean that's clear. But banks should do that on their own. And they should worry about their own capital functioning. That's what they should do. It shouldn't be a government function.

Strong banks want strong regulation.

It's not that the regulator doesn't want the banking industry to grow. The growth of the industry has always been in relation to the GDP (gross domestic product) growth.

Separating out banks and investment banks right now under Glass-Steagall would have very big implications to the liquidity and the capital markets and banks being able to perform necessary lending.

Regulation is necessary, particularly in a sector, like the banking sector, which exposes countries and people to a risk.

All the Federal Reserve can do is make loans against collateral.

President Obama has a good sense not just of the economic requisites for financial crisis firefighting but also how you build political support for moving forward on reforming the financial system, making sure that the banks are carrying enough capital.

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

Capping the size of American banks won't eliminate the needs of big businesses; it will force them to turn to foreign banks that won't face the same restrictions.

It is no wonder that bank capital is regulated. When borrowing and lending is profitable, it is tempting for banks to scale up their operations and to borrow and lend too much in relation to their capital, in effect reducing the effectiveness of the potential capital cushion.

Limits should be placed on how big big banks can become.

We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price.

Well-functioning financial systems are important in achieving sustained economic growth. They play a crucial role in channeling household savings into the corporate sector and allocating investment funds among firms.

If credit unions can grow and prosper with a 15 percent cap, so can banks.

It is probably the case that some regulation of financing will make crises less likely, and I would say higher capital requirements are an almost fail-safe way to make banks safer. But there are a lot of other things that may not be doing that, and so we need to be careful about sort of, like, rushing to one conclusion or another.

No significant deregulation of financial institutions occurred in the last 30 years.