There is a time for weighing evidence and a time for acting. And if there's one thing I've learned throughout my work in finance, government, and conservation, it is to act before problems become too big to manage.
Henry PaulsonRead
Economic growth and environmental protection are not at odds. They're opposite sides of the same coin if you're looking at longer-term prosperity.
Interpretation
Economic growth and environmental protection are interconnected and can mutually benefit long-term prosperity.
In this quote, Henry Paulson emphasizes the idea that economic growth does not have to come at the expense of environmental health. Instead, he argues that fostering economic development while also taking care of the environment leads to a more sustainable and prosperous future, where the well-being of the economy and the planet are seen as two aspects of the same overall goal.
In practice
During a conference on sustainable development, this quote could be cited to emphasize the need for balanced policies.
There is a time for weighing evidence and a time for acting. And if there's one thing I've learned throughout my work in finance, government, and conservation, it is to act before problems become too big to manage.
In all my life, I've been trained that when there's a big problem, you run toward it.
Complexity and interconnectedness matter as much as size in assessing risk in banking.
Every global concern - economic, environmental or security-related - can be addressed more effectively when the U.S. and China work together.
I think history shows that countries have to have some kind of a threshold level of economic success before they begin to have the means and the will to focus on the environment.
I've always said to everyone that ever worked for me, if you get too dug in on a position, the facts change, and you don't change to adapt to the facts, you will never be successful.
If you go back to the really long-run questions that interested me, the big question was why, over the centuries, the millennia, has growth been speeding up?
This is the paradox of thrift: belt-tightening causes people to lose their jobs, because other people are not buying what they produce, so their debt burden rises rather than falls.
I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.
Those who advocate devaluation are calling for a reduction in the wage levels and the real wage standards of every member of the working class.
Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.
With neoliberalism discredited and austerity failed, we need to rewrite the rules of the economy once again. But this time in the right way. We need rules that focus on long-term economic growth, and the only kind of sustainable prosperity is shared prosperity.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.