Sovereign Debt Crisis Quotes

I think that France has not made it clear enough recently to our German friends how important it is to introduce euro bonds as a tool against speculation. And how the necessary budget discipline needs to be accompanied by growth.

A public debt is a public curse.

People who buy government debt deserve to be punished and taught a lesson

As austerity measures were foisted upon Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and other highly indebted countries, growth was rendered even more elusive, aggravating unemployment

There is no question that a breakup of the euro would be very damaging, very costly, both financially and politically. And the biggest loss would be incurred by Germany. Germans have to bear in mind that, effectively, they have suffered practically no losses so far. Transfers have all been in the form of loans, and it is only when the loans are not repaid that real losses will be incurred.

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

So it won't be a surprise when the Greek default actually happens and we expect it one way or the other to be relatively soon.

The world is beset by challenges including the ongoing danger of international terrorism, and the significant political and economic threats posed by factors such as the high levels of corporate and sovereign debt and persistent unemployment.

The emphasis so far on fiscal austerity, while to a degree necessary for the countries facing market funding difficulties, is excessive when carried out across the board.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for the resolution of a systemic global bank is the possibility that public or private actors in different countries might take local actions that would cause the overall resolution to spin out of control.

How does the richest country in the history of the world fail to pay its bills?

It was very important for us to hear that both European governments and the IMF are going to sustain and augment their commitment to Greece because they don't pursue the debt reduction route. They're actually extending more debt, more loans to Greece.

Canadians know that the promise of a recession didn't happen because of anything we did here. If you look at all the causes of the recession, problems in mortgage markets, the problems in the banking sector, the problems in government finance in countries like Greece, none of those problems were in present Canada.

Every sensible banker understands that Greece should not have received any more money: a bankrupt state that can never be expected to repay loans is not a good debtor.

In order for the E.U. area to stay together, they needed to form a banking union, which meant they needed to have a common credible deposit insurance guarantee for everybody in the E.U. area.

While holding the eurozone together will be costly and difficult and painful for the politicians, breaking it up will be even more costly and more difficult.

Korea's early repayment of the full amount of loans from the IMF is a major milestone.

We saw in Greece how dangerous it is if a country has a bigger and bigger debt, and I hope that we will not have a second Greece in our neighbouring country, Italy.

If the official community is interested in asking the private sector to take another look at Greece, then it will have to be only as part of a broader process of addressing the full range of sovereign debt issues in Europe.

There are respectable individuals, who from a just aversion to an accumulation of Public debt, are unwilling to concede to it any kind of utility, who can discern no good to alleviate the ill with which they suppose it pregnant; who cannot be persuaded that it ought in any sense to be viewed as an increase of capital lest it should be inferred, that the more debt the more capital, the greater the burthens the greater the blessings of the community.

We have no exposure in Europe and not made any finances to the companies there. So the question of Greek debt crisis impacting the bank does not arise.

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.

The U.S. dollar is in terminal decline. America is tragically bankrupt, unable to pay its lenders without printing the dollars to do so, and enmeshed in an economic depression. The clock is ticking until the dollar faces a crisis of confidence like every other bubble before it.

It's a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment and of low growth.

I would like to see Greece as a case study, an opportunity for Europe to strengthen its coordination of fiscal policy.