Geithner Quotes & Sayings

The IMF was a more formal and less fun place to work than Treasury. The meetings were endless, with crushing bureaucracy, an intrusive and fractious executive board, an appalling amount of paper, and a lot of factional conflict among various fiefdoms. — Timothy F. Geithner

Mr. Geithner is an excellent minister. We have a good personal relationship. — Wolfgang Schauble

I believe deeply that it's very important to the United States, to the economic health of the United States, that we maintain a strong dollar. — Timothy Geithner

The recognition that things that are not sustainable will eventually come to an end does not give us much of a guide to whether the transition will be calm or exciting. — Timothy Geithner

If you don't try to generate more revenues through tax reform, if you don't ask, you know, the most fortunate Americans to bear a slightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American, then you have to - the only way to achieve fiscal sustainability is through unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for middle class seniors, or unacceptably deep cuts in national security. — Timothy Geithner

I think we're not going to preserve Fannie and Freddie in anything like their current form. We're going to have to bring fundamental change to that market. — Timothy Geithner

Never before in modern times has so much of the world been simultaneously hit by a confluence of economic and financial turmoil such as we are now living through. — Timothy Geithner

I personally believe that there's going to be a good case for the government preserving some type of guarantee to make sure that people have the ability to borrow to finance a house even in a very damaging recession. I think there's going to be a good case for that. — Timothy Geithner

The rest of the world needs the US economy and financial system to recover in order for it to revive. We remain at the center of global economic activity with financial and trade ties to every region of the globe. — Timothy Geithner

In the financial system we have today, with less risk concentrated in banks, the probability of systemic financial crises may be lower than in traditional bank-centered financial systems. — Timothy Geithner

Looking past the immediate crisis, a more resilient system must be built on stronger and better designed shock absorbers, both in the major institutions and in the infrastructure of the financial system. — Timothy Geithner

And I think it's a prudent, responsible way, given the scale of the emergency, the scale of the damage still facing America, that we finance these additional support for the unemployed as well as the support for small business. We think there's a good case for doing it now. We want to do it in an overall fiscally responsible way. — Timothy Geithner

Although this crisis in some ways started in the United States, it is a global crisis. We bear a substantial share of the responsibility for what has happened, but factors that made the crisis so acute and so difficult to contain lie in a broader set of global forces that built up in the years before the start of our current troubles. — Timothy Geithner

We don't hear our president [Barack Obama] talking about the need for high-quality jobs for everybody, giving it priority, not just giving a speech in Detroit. That's fine, but speaking to Tim Geithner, speaking to Larry Summers. When are you going to make jobs, jobs, jobs a priority rather than Wall Street, Wall Street, Wall Street a priority? That's what I'm concerned about. — Cornel West

This strategy, which was then used as the template for the rest of the European periphery, turning the majority of European states into what I jokingly refer to as Bailoutistan, was always going to backfire on the European economy. Tim Geithner and Jack Lew, his successor in the US Treasury Department, understood this well. They shared the concern that what started in Greece in 2010, with the combination of an absurd bailout and a hideous level of austerity, has put Europe into a position that undermines America's recovery and threatens the prospects of China, Latin America, even India and Africa. — Yanis Varoufakis

Hyperinflation is not going to happen in this country, will never happen ... The Fed putting so much money into the system is not going to create the risk of hyperinflation in the future. We have a strong independent Federal Reserve with a very strong mandate from the Congress, and they will do what's necessary to keep inflation low and stable over time. — Timothy Geithner

The major economic policy challenges facing the nation today - pick your favorites among the usual suspects of low public and household savings, concerns about educational quality and achievement, high and rising income inequality, the large imbalances between our social insurance commitments and resources - are not about monetary policy. — Timothy Geithner

It is very important for people to understand that the United States of America and no country around the world can devalue its way to prosperity, to be competitive. It is not a viable, feasible strategy, and we will not engage in it. — Timothy Geithner

This crisis exposed very significant problems in the financial systems of the United States and some other major economies. Innovation got too far out in front of the knowledge of risk. — Timothy Geithner

We have parts of our system which are overwhelmed by regulation. It wasn't the absence of regulation that was the problem. It was despite the presence of regulation you got huge risks built up. — Timothy Geithner

This crisis is not simply a more severe version of the usual business cycle recession, the typical downturn in which economies ultimately adjust and stabilize. — Timothy Geithner

The people in a position to resolve the financial crisis were, of course, the very same people who had failed to foresee it: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, future Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, and so on. A few Wall Street CEOs had been fired for their roles in the subprime mortgage catastrophe, but most remained in their jobs, and they, of all people, became important characters operating behind the closed doors, trying to figure out what to do next. With them were a handful of government officials - the same government officials who should have known a lot more about what Wall Street firms were doing, back when they were doing it. All shared a distinction: They had proven far less capable of grasping basic truths in the heart of the U.S. financial system than a one-eyed money manager with Asperger's syndrome. — Michael Lewis

There are those on Wall Street and in the plutocracy who feel that Geithner is a hero who deftly steered the country from economic ruin. To many ordinary Americans, however, he is considered a Wall Street puppet and a servant of the so-called banksters. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

There is a basic lesson on financial crises that governments tend to wait too long, underestimate the risks, want to do too little. And it ultimately gets away from them, and they end up spending more money, causing much more damage to the economy. — Timothy Geithner

making judgments under the pressure of a crisis, about weighing the relative merits of various choices with potentially catastrophic outcomes. — Timothy F. Geithner

Yours till submarines have screen doors. — Carole Geithner

They should make earplugs for people who are grieving, so we don't have to hear the stupid things people say, but I'd look like a dork in them. -Corinna — Carole Geithner

Monetary policy itself cannot sensibly be directed at reducing imbalances. — Timothy Geithner

But what we're determined to do, and what the reforms will do is to make sure this system goes back to its core purpose of taking the savings of Americans and from investors around the world and allocating those to people with an idea, not just the largest companies in the country, but to small businesses with an idea and a plan for growing. — Timothy Geithner

The choice is between which mistake is easier to correct: underdoing it or overdoing it. — Timothy Geithner

The government can help, but we need to make this transition now to a recovery led by private investment, private. — Timothy Geithner

I think you need to have a tax system that basically is flat, fair and simple. And - that you can put on a post card. I mean, even Timothy Geithner could do this one and get it on time. — Rick Perry

We will not support returning Fannie and Freddie to the role they played before conservatorship, where they fought to take market share from private competitors while enjoying the privilege of government support. — Timothy Geithner

The substantial uncertainty about the path of asset price movements going forward necessarily reduces the case for altering policy in advance of the move. — Timothy Geithner

Some think that by preparing to deal with crises you make them more likely. I think the wiser judgment is the contrary. In this area at least, if you want peace or stability, it's better to prepare for war or instability. — Timothy Geithner

you cannot enjoy the light without enduring the heat. — Timothy F. Geithner

I don't want to put words in Geithner's mouth, but I think he is generally against the revolving door of government officials taking jobs with companies that they have overseen or in roles that involve lobbying. At minimum, I'm pretty sure he felt that way about himself. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

We judged that a sudden, disorderly failure of Bear would have brought with it unpredictable but severe consequences for the functioning of the broader financial system and the broader economy, with lower equity prices, further downward pressure on home values, and less access to credit for companies and households. — Timothy Geithner

The world is likely to view any temporary extension of the income tax cuts for the top two percent as a prelude to a long-term or permanent extension, and that would hurt economic recovery as well by undermining confidence that we're prepared to make a commitment today to bring down our future deficits. — Timothy Geithner

We believe in a strong dollar ... Chinese financial assets are very safe. — Timothy Geithner

The plausible outcomes range from the gradual and benign to the more precipitous and damaging. — Timothy Geithner

In addition to billions in new 'stimulus' spending that our country can't afford, the Geithner plan also contains billions in tax increases on small and family-owned businesses while protecting the tax preferences of wealthy, multinational corporations. — Kevin McCarthy

As financial markets continue to broaden and deepen, the behavior of asset prices will play an important role in the formulation of monetary policy going forward, perhaps a more important role than in the past. — Timothy Geithner

Most consequential choices involve shades of gray, and some fog is often useful in getting things done. — Timothy Geithner