Lawrence Summers

Global capital markets pose the same kinds of problems that jet planes do. They are faster, more comfortable, and they get you where you are going better. But the crashes are much more spectacular.

Many children are taught to believe in God. I came to believe in the power of systems analysis.

I promise you that there are a lot of people involved in various kinds of retail activities who think they have a crucial role in the economy, and they're right.

We are inheriting the worst financial system since the Depression. We're inheriting a situation - when people go back and study major banking crises a quarter century from now, the one that America developed in 2007 and 2008 is going to be one of those crises.

You can't have a situation in which companies proceed on a permanent basis relying only on cash from the government.

If you look at the history of the American capital market, there's probably no innovation more important than the idea of generally accepted accountancy principles.

There are children who are working in textile businesses in Asia who would be prostitutes on the streets if they did not have those jobs.

It certainly was difficult to sell NAFTA because it's always difficult to sell open markets.

Contagion has become very much a phenomenon, and it's a phenomenon of globalization.

The availability of private insurance provides tremendous insulation for millions of individuals.

It used to be said that when the U.S. sneezed, the world caught a cold. The opposite is equally true today.

I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted.

It was wrong to allow Stalin to shape the European landscape of the 20th century. It would be even more wrong to let him shape the landscape of the 21st century.

The dramatic modernization of the Asian economies ranks alongside the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution as one of the most important developments in economic history.

The United States basically accepted protection abroad as the price of post-war recovery. Now, that these countries have caught up to our level of prosperity, it is time for them to catch up to our level of openness.

I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to it.

Start with the idea that you can't repeal the laws of economics. Even if they are inconvenient.

But ultimately what I was impressed by during my years in government was how much the intellectual climate and the prevailing intellectual notions constrained and represented the universe within which the discourse took place.

Now is the time for us to strike. We must strengthen our foothold in Asia, to ensure no nation overtakes us.

Blaming speculators as a response to financial crisis goes back at least to the Greeks. It's almost always the wrong response.

In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.

It says something about this new global economy that USA Today now reports every morning on the day's events in Asian markets.

In politics, as in poetry, it is sometimes true that it is darkest before dawn.