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
If a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution.
Interpretation
Financial institutions operating in the U.S. affect American citizens similarly, regardless of their liquidity status.
Henry Paulson emphasizes that financial institutions' operations within the U.S., particularly those that hire American workers, directly impact the economy and the well-being of the American people. He highlights that the liquidity of these institutions is less relevant than their presence and engagement in the American economic landscape, implying that their challenges can have widespread repercussions for individuals and communities alike.
In practice
During a financial seminar discussing the recent economic downturn.
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.
There are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do.
Markets can influence the events that they anticipate.
The culture of self-gratification and deregulation that began during the Clinton years and continued under President George W. Bush led to the bursting of one stock market bubble at the turn of the century and a full-scale financial crash less than a decade later.
On the market, all is harmony. But as soon as intervention appears and is established, conflict is created, for each may participate in a scramble to be a net gainer rather than a net loser - to be part of the invading team instead of one of the victims.
Bankruptcy exposes the economic vulnerability and insecurity of middle class women.
The proper goal of an economic democracy agenda is to replace the global suicide economy ruled by rapacious and unaccountable global corporations with a planetary system of local living economies comprised of human-scale enterprise rooted in the communities they serve and locally owned by the people whose wellbeing depends on them.
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