Judd Gregg Quotes

Bankruptcy has become a feeding trough for lawyers, accountants and investment bankers.

I'm the finance minister of a bankrupt country!

So you know, everyone points out Greece's default record, but the history of a lot of sovereign nations is not a good one when it comes to lending them money.

Market discipline can only limit moral hazard to the extent that debt and equity holders believe that, in the event of distress, they will bear costs.

The dearth of business activity on the traditional day of rest makes Sunday an ideal time to declare insolvency. Bankruptcy petitions are time-stamped to the minute, instantly dividing a failed company's dealings into pre-bankruptcy transactions and post-bankruptcy transactions.

There are lots of businesses that are well in excess of $9 billion that have gone into bankruptcy, that have been mismanaged. And that has not served anyone very well.

There's only one thing you can do in bankruptcy: break your word, break your deals. It allows you to say to the small businesses, who have been catering lunches for you, 'Sorry, we're not paying you.' It allows you to go to the workers and say, 'Sorry, we're not paying you.'

A lot of other things come along with Chapter 11, which basically end up in a lot of pain.

Generally speaking, companies get into bankruptcy as a kind of meritocracy. Somebody made some sort of big mistake, to get into bankruptcy, and very often, a part of the mistake is too much leverage.

If you destroy a firm, you can't pull it out of bankruptcy overnight.

When I became CEO of Xerox 10 years ago, the company's situation was dire. Debt was mounting, the stock sinking and bankers were calling. People urged me to declare bankruptcy, but I felt personally responsible for tens of thousands of employees.

In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors.

When debts are not paid because they cannot be paid, the best thing to do is not talk about them, and shuffle the cards again.

Greece could default on its debts and even exit currency bloc if it cannot deliver reforms.

The real danger with debt is what happens if lots of people decide, or are forced, to pay it off at the same time.

The moment a large investor doesn't believe a government will pay back its debt when it says it will, a crisis of confidence could develop. Investors have scant patience for the years of good governance - politically fraught fiscal restructuring, austerity and debt rescheduling - it takes to defuse a sovereign-debt crisis.

By the time most people file for bankruptcy, their credit is already trashed, they have a high debt-to-income ratio - a key indicator lenders look at - and they've likely defaulted on more than a few accounts.

A beautiful deleveraging balances the three options. In other words, there is a certain amount of austerity, there is a certain amount of debt restructuring, and there is a certain amount of printing of money. When done in the right mix, it isn't dramatic.

Solving a problem created by debt... by creating more debt is a fool's errand.

Of all the artists on Death Row, none of them went bankrupt.

Being a starving company isn't fun for anyone. Most that go away need to go away... but certainly not all.

In a bankruptcy, everyone around the table has an interest in making the workers take a haircut. The more the workers take a haircut, the more money there is for the bondholders and stockholders.

We are broke—bankrupt—really bankrupt!

I've actually taken companies public, I've actually busted companies, I've actually gone broke.

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