Bob Diamond Quotes

To finance deficits, the government must sell bonds to investors, competing for capital that could otherwise be used to invest in stocks or corporate bonds. Government borrowings raise long-term interest rates, stifling economic growth.

Ours is an economy that depends on the availability of credit at affordable interest rates.

We tend to think of the stock and bond markets as relatively recent historical phenomena, but, in fact, there have been credit markets since human civilization first took root in the Fertile Crescent.

Debt is the lifeblood of finance; with the rise of the securities-and-trading portion of the [financial] industry came a rise in all kinds [of debt], both public and private.

Right now, a majority of the debt is owed to foreign interests, Japan being the largest purchaser of government debt today, soon to be surpassed by China as the number one purchaser of our debt in this Nation.

Defaulting on the nation's debt would be cataclysmic. The U.S. Treasury's Aaa rating is the one constant in the world's financial system. When times are bad anywhere on the planet, global investors flock to Treasury bonds because they know they will get their money back.

On private transactions, I'll just go very quickly now, a major difference between the United States and Euroland is that in Europe banks are much more important in financial transactions than in the United States.

Increasingly, the Chinese will own a lot more of the world because they will be converting their dollar reserves and U.S. government bonds into real assets.

It is very difficult to predict when a bond crisis could happen.

Spain is finding it very difficult to finance itself with sovereign debt risk premium so high.

Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It

The American banking system, which at one time extended productive loans to agriculture and industry, has today become a giant betting machine

Wall Street has become the Western extension of Threadneedle and Lombard streets, and the wealthy classes of England and America have been brought into touch... .

American investors [abroad] receive an interest return higher by at least 2 percent on the average than they would receive from similar government or industrial investment within the United States …. It is obvious that they are taking a correspondingly greater risk. A considerable portion of this investment is in areas (as in parts of Latin-America) where political unrest is chronic and where legislation changes rapidly, or in areas in which there is a serious possibility of war or bankruptcy.

The Annual Reports of the British Council of Foreign Bondholders still record the fact that the holders of the bonds of various Southern states, to the amount of sixty million dollars principal (interest at 6 percent for some fifty to eighty years), still are waiting to be repaid.

The important source of finance is now commercial papers, bonds, and so on.

PSU banks are sole lenders to capital-intensive firms.

The sale of Treasury bonds, notes, and bills finances the U.S. government, and those securities are, in turn, a primary vehicle for savings for a wide range of U.S. households. Treasury securities are also an important source of collateral within the financial system.

I've been focused on the West Coast economy and being a banker and lending in these markets.

Starting in the wake of the 2008 GFC (Global Financial Crisis), market observers have warned of a crash in the bond market. Initially, it was believed that the trillions printed to bail out the banks would cause inflation and, therefore, a flight from bonds.

The efficiency, credibility, and liquidity of the financial markets have been foundational to the largest economy in the world.

You can't grow unless your banking system is expanding and you are extending credit.

U.S. capital formation, which has been pretty high in the '90s and very high in the late 1990s, is what is being financed by the savings of the rest of the world, generally poorer than ourselves, because our deficit on current account, chronic deficit, is their surplus, and they have been willingly bringing that to the American market.

As much as the banking system may not be terribly popular, it is an essential part of the economy.

Diversify, because that helps reduce risk. And you can diversify outside the United States. Some people would never invest in Europe - I think that's a mistake.