Low Rates Quotes & Sayings

And so Fannie Mae produces very strong results for investors in - when interest rates are high and when interest rates are low, in recession and during booms. — Franklin Raines

For equity markets, the combination of low interest rates, strong economic growth and low inflation has proved very beneficial, with global share markets rising solidly in each of the past three years. This has been underpinned by strong growth in profits so that, notwithstanding the rise in share prices, P/E ratios have been declining on average. — Ian Macfarlane

Take crack cocaine. Particularly in the early days of the policy, ninety percent of the people being arrested were black, even though they didn't use the drug at higher rates and even though their numbers in the general population are so low. How could that be? The thing is, you place all your resources in communities of color. And if you do that, you're going to arrest black people. — Carl Hart

Low interest rates are a big opportunity for investment. But the issue is that this money should go to the real economy, not the financial economy. — Carlos Slim

The United States is absolutely ripe for a rise in gasoline taxes. The nominal gasoline excise tax rate has been fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1994.29 Inflation alone has reduced the real value of that tax per gallon by around 30 percent. As with other federal tax rates, the U.S. excise tax rate on gasoline is extremely low by international comparison. We might conservatively assume that by 2015 an extra 0.5 percent of GDP could be collected by some combination of a higher gasoline excise tax and modest carbon levies on other fossil fuels (such as on coal at the utilities). Other — Jeffrey D. Sachs

The Obama administration deserves credit for quickly ending the housing free fall. In particular, Obama empowered the Federal Housing Administration to ensure that households could find mortgages at low interest rates even during the worst phase of the financial panic. — Mark Zandi

There is no better way to quickly buoy hard-pressed homeowners than helping them take advantage of the currently record low fixed mortgage rates and significantly reduce their monthly mortgage payments. — Mark Zandi

The industrial real estate market completed one of its strongest demand cycles in history as several factors ignited the fire. For projects coming on line in 2005, record-low interest rates during the design phase 12 to 18 months prior provided additional incentive for development and absorption. — Brian Gordon

I think the rise of China is inevitable, because China has moved from a low-cost producer, at low levels of technology, to higher levels of technology, and because it's very competitive, even in some high-tech products they offer at very competitive rates - much lower than their competitors. — Najib Razak

Low interest rates are usually attributed to low inflation, weak economic growth and super easy monetary policy. But there's another deep-seated factor that doesn't get much attention: demographics. — Greg Ip

Monetary policy has less room to maneuver when interest rates are close to zero, while expansionary fiscal policy is likely both more effective and less costly in terms of increased debt burden when interest rates are pinned at low levels. — Ben Bernanke

Today the strategies of many companies in the real estate industry are premised on low interest rates, an assumption that has resulted in the rapid expansion of the real estate securitization business. This trend could be regarded as a risk factor, as it exposes the real estate sector to at least three potential problems: first, interest rate hikes; second, revisions to securitization business accounting standards; and third, overheating in the real estate market. — Akira Mori

I am convinced that if stories such as these have any lasting value, it is in revealing the kind of work young pulp-writers were doing in those days when rates were low and one had to make a typewriter smoke in order to keep eating. — Hugh B. Cave

Interest rates are to asset prices what gravity is to the apple. When there are low interest rates, there is a very low gravitational pull on asset prices. — Warren Buffett

The rates of soda consumption in our poorest communities cannot be explained by individual consumer preferences alone, but rather are linked to broader issues of access and affordability of healthy foods in low-income neighborhoods, and to the marketing efforts of soda companies themselves. — Geoffrey Canada

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, "Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and avoidance of large federal deficits on the other; it is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, as long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance the budget - just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. In short, the paradoxical truth is that the tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now. — Ronald Reagan

Low interest rates and cheap credit also cause people to act foolishly or greedily ... — Fareed Zakaria

And that's the one thing that people do not understand is that we have very low interest rates and if those go back to historical levels or even go back to scary thoughts that they're back in the late '70s, early '80s, then that's going to really be hard to actually pay off those debts. It's going to be a - it's going to be a very big problem. — Ben Quayle

Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest rates. — Ludwig Von Mises

Function words behave differently than you might think. For example, the most commonly used word in spoken English, I, is used at far higher rates by followers than by leaders, truth-tellers than liars. People who use high rates of articles - a, an, the - do better in college than low users. And if you want to find your true love, compare the ways you use function words with that of your prospective partners. — James W. Pennebaker

What's behind these terribly low diagnostic rates? "One of the reasons celiac disease is so grossly underdiagnosed in this country," says Dr. Green, "is that the pharmaceutical industry has such a major role in the direction of health care here. In many countries around the world, where there are national health plans, doctors are actively encouraged to diagnose celiac disease. In this country, the pharmaceutical industry provides eighty percent of the money for medical research. It also provides a lot of money for postgraduate education, and there just aren't any drug companies that are interested in researching celiac disease. There's basically no money in it - no drug company will provide funds for the research." Simply put: Since there are no drugs to treat celiac disease, pharmaceutical companies stand to gain no profits from encouraging its diagnosis. — Elisabeth Hasselbeck

The effort to eliminate synthetic pesticides because of unsubstantiated fears about residues in food will make fruits and vegetables more expensive, decrease consumption, and thus increase cancer rates. The levels of synthetic pesticide residues are trivial in comparison to natural chemicals, and thus their potential for cancer causation is extremely low. [Ames believes that "to eat your veggies" is the best way to prevent cancer.] — Bruce Ames

Studies of immigration show that this resistance to heart disease is not just something in African or Chinese genes. When people move from low-risk to high-risk areas, disease rates skyrocket as they adopt Western diets and lifestyles. — Michael Greger

It was a survival thing: he didn't answer back, didn't say anything about job security for prison guards, debate the nature of repentance, rehabilitation, or rates of recidivism. He didn't say anything funny or clever, and, to be on the safe side, when he was talking to a prison official, whenever possible, he didn't say anything at all. Speak when you're spoken to. Do your own time. Get out. Go home ... Rebuild a life. — Neil Gaiman

For the longest time the romantic explanation for low rates of female infection endured: Possession of a womb, it was supposed, conferred a gentleness which simply could not bear the viciousness of a lycanthropic heart. Female werewolves, masculine idiocy maintained, must be killing themselves in crazy numbers ... It's quite extraordinary, given the wealth of historical evidence to the contrary, how long this fallacy of the gentler sex lasted, but the twentieth century (years before Myra and the girls of Abu Ghraib put their two penn'orth in) pretty much did away with it. Now we know: If women don't catch the werewolf bug, it's certainly not because they're sugar and spice and all things nice. — Glen Duncan

Bet on black. Buy low-debt or no-debt companies. When the economy is in trouble, these companies usually have enough cash on hand to stay out of trouble. And they seldom need to borrow when interest rates are high. — Nancy Dunnan

Of the 53 central banks tracked by Bloomberg, 19 have dropped their benchmark interest rates in the past three months. Low rates encourage consumers to borrow and spend, increasing domestic consumption. They also devalue currencies, making exports cheaper. That's good for the countries selling but hard on countries flooded with cheap products. — Anonymous

The single biggest issue that I'm very sensitive to is inflation. I'm very concerned that this extended period where the interest rates were quite low and stimulated a lot of activity could breed inflation and create a problem for us. — Sam Zell

Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America; for better and cheaper transportation; for low interest rates; for sounder home financing; for better banking; for the regulation of security issues; for reciprocal trade among nations and for the wiping out of slums. And my friends, for all of these we have only begun to fight. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I would also certainly continue to keep loan repayment interest rates as low as possible. And I would spread the financial aid a little less thinly across all income brackets. — Charles Vest

The government has brought on the housing problem, partly by these very low interest rates, which encouraged many people to go way out on a limb. They've brought it on by highly restrictive building policies, which have caused housing prices to skyrocket artificially. And they've brought it on by the Community Reinvestment Act, which presumes that politicians are better able to tell investors where to put their money than the investors themselves are. When you put all that together, you get something like what you have. — Thomas Sowell

Why are oil prices so low? First, energy consumption growth rates in developing markets have decreased. This is particularly noticeable in China. Second, new technologies are being developed and the shale gas revolution in the USA has taken place — Kenneth Rogoff

Debt certainly isn't always a bad thing. A mortgage can help you afford a home. Student loans can be a necessity in getting a good job. Both are investments worth making, and both come with fairly low interest rates. — Jean Chatzky

I want to build a studio in my backyard. The interest rates are low now, so who knows. — Paul Taylor

One of the risks related to an environment marked by high rates of unemployment, low rates of economic growth, and poor education is that it may serve as a breeding ground for radical sentiment. — Frans Cronje

It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus. — John F. Kennedy

If the U.S. Government was a company, the deficit would be $5 trillion because they would have to account by general accepted accounting principles. But actually they encourage government spending, reckless government spending, because the government can issue Treasury bills at extremely low interest rates. — Marc Faber

There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact
in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself
of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional SNOOT prescriptions ever were. Were I, for instance, a political conservative who opposed using taxation as a means of redistributing national wealth, I would be delighted to watch PC progressives spend their time and energy arguing over whether a poor person should be described as "low-income" or "economically disadvantaged" or "pre-prosperous" rather than constructing effective public arguments for redistributive legislation or higher marginal tax rates. [ ... ] In other words, PCE acts as a form of censorship, and censorship always serves the status quo. — David Foster Wallace

Hours are long. Wages are pitiful. But sweatshops are the symptom, not the cause, of shocking global poverty. Workers go there voluntarily, which means - hard as it is to believe - that whatever their alternatives are, they are worse. They stay there, too; turnover rates of multinational-owned factories are low, because conditions and pay, while bad, are better than those in factories run by local firms. And even a local company is likely to pay better than trying to earn money without a job: running an illegal street stall, working as a prostitute, or combing reeking landfills in cities like Manila to find recyclable goods. — Tim Harford

The International Monetary Fund basically acted as the world's debt enforcers - "You might say, the high-finance equivalent of the guys who come to break your legs." I launched into historical background, explaining how, during the '70s oil crisis, OPEC countries ended up pouring so much of their newfound riches into Western banks that the banks couldn't figure out where to invest the money; how Citibank and Chase therefore began sending agents around the world trying to convince Third World dictators and politicians to take out loans (at the time, this was called "go-go banking"); how they started out at extremely low rates of interest that almost immediately skyrocketed to 20 percent or so due to tight U.S. money policies in the early '80s; how, during the '80s and '90s, this led to the Third World debt crisis; how the IMF then stepped in to insist that, in order to obtain refinancing, poor countries would be obliged to abandon price supports on — David Graeber

The crisis and recession have led to very low interest rates, it is true, but these events have also destroyed jobs, hamstrung economic growth and led to sharp declines in the values of many homes and businesses. — Ben Bernanke

Asset-heavy businesses generally earn low rates of return - rates that often barely provide enough capital to fund the inflationary needs of the existing business, with nothing left over for real growth, for distribution to owners, or for acquisition of new businesses — Warren Buffett

the decrease in the top marginal income tax rate led to an explosion of very high incomes, which then increased the political influence of the beneficiaries of the change in the tax laws, who had an interest in keeping top tax rates low or even decreasing them further and who could use their windfall to finance political parties, pressure groups, and think tanks. — Thomas Piketty

But if I tell them about dozens and dozens of studies showing that the countries with low rates of heart disease consume low amounts of animal-based foods, and dozens and dozens of studies showing that individuals who eat more whole, plant-based foods get less heart disease, and I go on to document still more studies showing that a diet low in animal-based foods and high in unprocessed plant-based foods can slow or reverse heart disease, then people are more inclined to pay some attention. — T. Colin Campbell

Denmark has incredibly low crime rates, and parents feel that what a child needs most is frisk luft, or fresh air. The — Frans De Waal

Right now we think that rates will stay low, that you'll be able to get a mortgage below seven percent and that's kicked off a refinance boom that's going to put more money in the pockets of consumers. — Franklin Raines

Consider the case of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Its elderly residents have unusually low end-of-life hospital costs. During their last six months, according to Medicare data, they spend half as many days in the hospital as the national average, and there's no sign that doctors or patients are halting care prematurely. Despite average rates of obesity and smoking, their life expectancy outpaces the national mean by a year. — Atul Gawande

Buying a share of a good business is better than buying a share of a bad business. One way to do this is to purchase a business that can invest its own money at high rates of return rather than purchasing a business that can only invest at lower ones. In other words, businesses that earn a high return on capital are better than businesses that earn a low return on capital. — Joel Osteen

Good government cannot be found on the bargain-counter. We have seen samples of bargain-counter government in the past when low tax rates were secured by increasing the bonded debt for current expenses or refusing to keep our institutions up to the standard in repairs, extensions, equipment, and accommodations. I refuse, and the Republican Party refuses, to endorse that method of sham and shoddy economy. — Calvin Coolidge

No man learns to know his inmost nature by introspection, for he rates himself sometimes too low, and often too high, by his own measurement. Man knows himself only by comparing himself with other men; it is life that touches his genuine worth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Obviously, people with low or even moderate incomes could not afford such savings rates, and even diligent savings from their low wages would not be enough to pay for either retirement or healthcare. — William Greider

My thinking has always been that the worst problem we have with regard to lack of inclusion is the terribly low labor force participation rates and terribly high unemployment rates of young men, especially young men in ethnic minority groups and, in particular, young black men. — Edmund Phelps

You see people literally in a different galaxy who are paying extraordinarily low rates of tax. — Nick Clegg

We often observe that there is abundance of capital to be had at low rates of interest, while there are also large numbers of artisans starving for want of employment. — William Stanley Jevons

No passion is stronger in the breast of a man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high. — Virginia Woolf

Remember that in most cases, student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So you continue to pay it off anyway. Those who have very low interest rates (2-2.5 percent) on student loans and know everything is secure, great. — Suze Orman

When interest rates are low we have conditions for asset bubbles to develop, and they are developing at the moment. The ultimate asset bubble is gold. — George Soros

Despite a lingering low inventory and increasing prices, consumers still have the confidence to purchase a home. More and more people recognize the many opportunities in this market and the significant value of low interest rates. As job creation and wages continue to improve, many more first-time buyers are now making the decision to become homeowners. — Dave Liniger

When interest rates are high you want the average direction in which interest rates are moving to be downward; when interest rates are low you want the average direction to be upward. — John Hull