Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

Too big to fail is too big.

I'm really concerned that too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial.

The idea that the largest banks in the world would simultaneously fail, need government support, government guarantees, and/or government intervention to survive was not in my range of realistic scenarios.

No single housing finance institution should be too big to fail.

When the banks grow to or when these financial institutions grow to such a size that they can't sustain themselves, or what have you, they have problems, economic problems, or financial problems, they shouldn't be able to look back to you and I, the taxpayer, to be bailed out.

'Too big to fail' is fine for restaurant chains. If Denny's fails, it's fine for this economy. You can always go down to the TGIFs. But that's not the same for large-scale investment companies.

The TARP program was nevertheless necessary to keep banks from collapsing in a cascade of failures.

No bank should be allowed to become so big that it can blackmail governments.

As long as the big banks are allowed to remain big, their political leverage over Washington will remain big. And as long as their political leverage remains big, the taxpayer and economic tab for the next mess they create will be big.

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.

If a bank's too big so that it can't fail without hurting our economy, well then, it's too big.

Don't reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008, we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune, we called it a 'moral hazard,' because the bailout absolved the bank's bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.

I do not understand how it is that financial institutions could think that they could take taxpayer money and then turn around and act like it's business as usual. I don't understand how they can't see that the world has changed in a fundamental way, that it is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars.

The Commission concludes that, as massive losses spread throughout the financial system …, many institutions failed, or would have failed but for government bailouts. As panic gripped the market, credit markets seized up, trading ground to a halt, and the stock market plunged. Lack of transparency contributed greatly to the crisis: the exposures of financial institutions to risky mortgage assets and other potential losses were unknown to market participants, and indeed many firms did not know their own exposures.

The concern that you have raised is one that I frankly share. And I'm not talking about HSBC now, because that may not be appropriate. But I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.

We are optimistic with respect to thrifts .... I don't think that there is any cause for undue concern and I would reject any suggestion that we are in the midst of some sort of a major systemic problem with respect to any element of our financial services industry.

Businesses have no place being 'too big to fail.'

You can't have some institutions that are protected by the law, not allowed to fail, and not held to account, and all the other companies in America are allowed to fail. You can't have equal justice under law and too big to fail.

Not one criminal charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with the 2008 crisis. And in fact, it gets worse. No bonuses and none of their equity was taken.

As American citizens, if you believe all banks were bailed out, you would hate banks. I would, too.

If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.

The idea that either individuals or organisations are 'too big to fail' or that the tech and start-up sector is somehow different is wrong.

The too-big-to-fail reform project is massive in scope. In my view, it holds real promise. But the project will take years to complete. Success is not assured.

The fact that the government had to put up hundreds of billions of dollars to Citibank in guarantees was a public declaration that Citibank was a mess. Making Citibank go through financial restructuring would not have conveyed any more different information. So it's very hard to see why it would have had that kind of a panic if it were done well.

Any bank that is too big to fail is too big. Period.