Economic Accountability Quotes

We all know the principle that the polluter pays? Well one day I got to wondering why it is that the polluter seems to get away with it quite so often! Then it occurred to me that if the polluter is going to pay, somebody needs to tell him how much. The proper valuation of natural capital will enable us to say how much.

How can government reduce the frequency and the severity of future catastrophes? Companies that have the potential to create significant harm must be required to pay for the costs they inflict, either before or after the fact. Economists agree on this general approach. The problem is in putting such a policy into effect.

We [USA and China] have a common responsibility with different numerical targets, and that's the situation ultimately we are going to have with China. We emit six times more per person than they do. It's hard to tell them to cut theirs in half right now until we start moving. Being the ostrich with your head in the sand and tail feathers in the air like some would have us to do while China continues to pollute is simply not an option.

The problems that exist on Wall Street today go to the center of a debate in this country about wealth and democracy. We cannot keep our democracy if those who are in charge of handling the engines of our economy are not honest with their shareholders. That's why there is a role for government regulation here. That role for government is breaking up the monopolies, insisting on public disclosure, insisting on public audits, insisting on restitution whenever someone has been cheated.

The president's budget request today demonstrates his unwillingness to come clean on the true costs of his agenda. A penny saved is not a penny earned if at the end of the day you still owe a quarter.

Nationalization would likely mean wiping out the big banks' managements and shareholders. It's because that reckoning has mostly been avoided so far that those bankers may be the Americans in the greatest denial of all.

The Senate voted 59 to 39 in favor of an amendment I offered to the Budget Resolution calling on the Fed to tell the American people who they loaned $2.2 trillion to and how much each bank received.

I want to see somebody go to jail over the financial crisis and not just black, brown and poor whites over humbles and minor drug beefs.

Now that the day of reckoning has arrived, they cry socialism!

If you run a corporation, your job is to maximize the return on investment for your investors. Good for you. But by the same token, we have to remember that corporations have no compassion. That's why legislation and regulations are necessary.