Jose Angel Gurria Quotes

An AIG failure would have been devastating to the financial system and to the economy.

Commercial distress in any great business center will the more surely create widespread disaster.

Last year, in the year 2008, it just became normal to watch great American institutions crumble, almost dissolve like sand.

The failure of Lehman Brothers demonstrated that liquidity provision by the Federal Reserve would not be sufficient to stop the crisis; substantial fiscal resources were necessary.

We judged that a sudden, disorderly failure of Bear would have brought with it unpredictable but severe consequences for the functioning of the broader financial system and the broader economy, with lower equity prices, further downward pressure on home values, and less access to credit for companies and households.

If the financial system collapses, it's really, really hard to put it back together again.

The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 was an extraordinarily complex event with multiple causes.

Fiscal crises often turn into financial crises, dealing a blow to the real economy.

Many of us like to think of financial economics as a science, but complex events like the financial crisis suggest that this conceit may be more wishful thinking than reality.

The failure of Lehman may have allowed the government to do more to prop up the economy than it otherwise could.

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

Financial crises are an unfortunate but necessary consequence of modern capitalism.

In September 2008, the overleveraged and undermanaged U.S. banking system suffered a terrifying collapse. And that, in turn, nearly took the whole country down.

If we bankrupt America, we will all pay the price.

We do not want financial convulsions.

Two months ago we were facing serious problems. The country was dying by inches. It was dying because trade and commerce had declined to dangerously low levels; prices for basic commodities were such as to destroy the value of the assets of national institutions such as banks, savings banks, insurance companies, and others. These institutions, because of their great needs, were foreclosing mortgages, calling loans, refusing credit. Thus there was actually in process of destruction the property of millions of people.

I have 13 bankers in my office, and they say that if you go forward with this you will cause the worst financial crisis since World War II.

Nasty financial crises tend to be even worse political ones.

With every year that passes, the more we have to be careful not to forget the causes and consequences of the Great Recession.

If AIG collapsed, it would have buckled our financial system and wrought economic havoc on the lives of millions of our citizens.

When you lose control of risk at a financial institution, you do a variety of unfortunate credit extensions or purchases - and all of a sudden, you've blown up your business.

If AIG had tried to unwind their derivatives books. I don't know. It would have hit every institution in the world.

The only surprise about the economic crisis of 2008 was that it came as a surprise to so many.

Drying up of capital has different consequences in different environments.