Plus International Bank Quotes & Sayings

I became convinced that the advanced industrial countries, through international organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the World Bank, were not only not doing all that they could to help these [developing] countries but were sometimes making their life more difficult. IMF programs had clearly worsened the East Asian crisis, and the "shock therapy" they had pushed in the former Soviet Union and its satellites played an important role in the failure of the transition. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

We know too little about global wealth dynamics, so we need international transmission of bank information. — Thomas Piketty

[Farmer] went to dozens of American and Canadian universities and colleges, preaching his O for the P [Preferential Option for the Poor] gospel, and to South Africa, where he debated a World Bank official at an international AIDS conference. "Africans must learn to curb their sexual appetites," the banker remarked, and Farmer replied, "I want to talk about other bankers, not the World Bankers, but bankers in general. My suspicion is they're not getting a lot of sex, because they spend a lot of time screwing the poor. — Tracy Kidder

When we speak of confronting Empire, we need to identify what Empire means. Does it mean the US government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that? — Arundhati Roy

Once the violence has ceased, the US should immediately call on the World Bank and other international institutions to convene a donors conference to rebuild Lebanon's shattered infrastructure. — John Conyers

The problem with the World Bank has to do with development - the spreading of Western over-consumption worldwide. — Herman E. Daly

We believe that unilateral sanctions violate international law, in fact. They violate free trade. They violate human growth and development, human development, and that when you actually sanction a bank of a country, the meaning of it is quite clear. You're sanctioning medicine for the people. — Hassan Rouhani

In truth, it's not the shareholders of the American International Group who benefited most from its bailout; they were mostly wiped out. The great beneficiaries have been the creditors and counterparties at the other end of A.I.G.'s derivatives deals - firms like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Barclays and UBS. — Tyler Cowen

If Americans are frustrated with Congress, imagine their frustration with a group of international bank officials running our ecomomy-bankers who may not have as their motive either to see us out of debt to them or to strengthen our economy, society, international influence, or other elements of our way of life. — Oliver DeMille

In 1980 the Latin American nations collectively were receiving from their external creditors - major banks, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank - about $11 billion more than they were losing in capital transfers back to wealthy-nation interests. But by 1985 these nations would be losing $35 billion more a year in capital transfers to North America and Europe than they received in loans and investments.41 — Laurie Garrett

I don't think anyone sets out to malign poor people but certainly that's what we do through organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. — Bob Geldof

There are five main purposes of central bank cooperation" ... "the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful. — William Smith White

Contrary to a tenacious myth, France is not owned by California pension funds or the Bank of China, any more than the United States belongs to Japanese and German investors. The fear of getting into such a predicament is so strong today that fantasy often outstrips reality. The reality is that inequality with respect to capital is a far greater domestic issue than it is an international one. — Thomas Piketty

Bopha, Sandy, floods in Pakistan, droughts in China ... How many reports from the likes of the World Bank, NASA and the International Energy Agency will it take? How many preventable catastrophes until our leaders realize that climate change will not be solved by nice speeches and empty promises? Countries like Canada and the U.S. have promised to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution and provide adequate financial support for developing countries, they have so far failed on both counts. — Steven Guilbeault

It is often believed that, as long as we're the economic powerhouse of the world and have a huge military advantage, we can control the world by "owning" international organizations like the United Nations, NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank. These international organizations may also be used as a means to get around congressional oversight and restrictions that Congress and the people might prefer. To a degree, that control has been achieved. But now that the US is the largest debtor nation in the world and in all history, the days of military and economic supremacy are numbered, as are the days of dollar hegemony. — Ron Paul

Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, has seen a few financial schemes in his time. As the lead local prosecutor in the world's financial capital, he has battled frauds like the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which stole billions of dollars from investors worldwide. — Alex Berenson

The most powerful bodies in the world, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, are also the least democratic and inclusive. — Anita Roddick

There was reason for STILLMAN'S EXTREME SECRECY. HE WAS PREPARING TO EXTEND THE CITY BANK'S POWER OVER THE EARTH AND FULLY RECOGNIZED THAT THIS AMBITION WOULD DRAW HIM INTO THE WEB OF INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL INTRIGUE AND ESPIONAGE — George B. Cortelyou

Nicaragua is a World Bank and International Monetary Fund designated 'heavily indebted poor country,' with little legal ability to control its economic future: Everything is for sale. And once Nicaraguans decide to cash in and sell their houses or farms, they have to look far inland for anything affordable. — Tony D'Souza

The International Express man couldn't understand it. I mean, in the old days, and it wasn't that long ago really, there had been an angler every dozen yards along the bank; children had played there; courting couples had come to listen to the splish and gurgle of the river, and to hold hands, and to get all lovey-dovey in the Sussex sunset. He'd done that with Maud, his missus, before they were married. They'd come here to spoon and, on one memorable occasion, fork."
From "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman. — Terry Pratchett

The thing about the Lexington International Bank ladder was that it was very long, and climbing it was very exhausting, and so Andrew Brown didn't have a lot of time to think about whether he really wanted to get to the top of it - and besides, since so many other people were climbing too, the view from the top must be worth it.
So he kept going. He worked hard. He put his heart and mind and soul into it. There was an opening for a position half a rung higher than he already was. With a promotion, he might get two hours a week of a secretary's time. He'd go to more important meetings, with more senior people, and have the opportunity to impress them, and if he did he might be promoted again and then ... well, of course eventually he'd be running the whole office. It's important to have a dream: otherwise you might notice where you really are. — Naomi Alderman

Conservatives believe that international institutions such as the United Nations are anti-American and anti-Israeli cabals. Progressives do not like the economic medicine that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank force down the throats of developing countries. — Michael Ignatieff

If progressive deep frames had been articulated and present in the public mind, the idea of a "war on terror" never would have made sense. If we viewed our strength as our diplomatic ability to forge international consensus and coalitions, and if we recognized that killing and maiming civilians through military action creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terrorism, we wouldn't have looked to our military to solve the problem. Had progressive deep frames been prevalent at the time of 9/11, Americans would have taken "war on terror" as a powerful metaphor but not a literal guide to action, like the "war on poverty." They would have seen it as a major crime problem - like international organized crime - and sought to bring these criminals to justice by the means that work best, like tracing bank accounts, placing spies in their organizations, and so on. It — George Lakoff

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is eager to enter into close relationship with the Bank for International Settlements ... The conclusion is impossible to escape that the State and Treasury Departments are willing to pool the banking system of Europe and America, setting up a world financial power independent of and above the Government of the United States ... The United States under present conditions will be transformed from the most active of manufacturing nations into a consuming and importing nation with a balance of trade against it. — Louis Thomas McFadden

The World Trade Organization, The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions virtually write economic policy and parliamentary legislation. With a deadly combination of arrogance and ruthlessness, they take their sledgehammers to fragile, interdependent, historically complex societies and devastate them, all under the fluttering banner of 'reform'. — Arundhati Roy

All problems, depressions, wars, disasters, assassinations, all of them were planned, caused, instigated, and implemented by the International Bankers and their attempt to establish a central bank in every country in the world, which they have now done, thanks to corrupt politicians who have been bought and paid for. This is all you need to know about the history of the world. — John F. Kennedy

In a small Swiss city sits an international organization so obscure and secretive ... Control of the institution, the Bank for International Settlements, lies with some of the world's most powerful and least visible men: the heads of 32 central banks, officials able to shift billions of dollars and alter the course of economies at the stroke of a pen. — Keith Bradsher

It was not always the case, of course, that navies paid for themselves. In wartime, costs often exceeded revenues, and those deficits grew over time as fleets and armies got bigger. But this was hardly an insurmountable obstacle for the most dynamic economies in the world. The United Provinces and England were able to borrow all they needed to underwrite their defense budgets. The pressures of war gave a powerful impetus to the growth of stocks, bonds, loans, and paper currencies during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and helped to turn Amsterdam and then London into international financial centers. To take one example, the Bank of England was established in 1694 to raise funds to allow England to wage war against France. — Max Boot

There are a number of institutions globally where the Federal Reserve typically leads the U.S. effort to work with financial regulators from other countries, and we try to, to the extent possible, establish international standards for how - the amount of capital a bank should hold, for example, or how much. — Ben Bernanke

In Egypt the neoliberal programs have meant statistical growth, like right before the Arab Spring, Egypt was a kind of poster child for the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund:] the marvelous economic management and great reform. The only problem was for most of the population it was a kind of like a blow in the solar plexus: wages going down, benefits being eliminated, subsidized food gone and meanwhile, high concentration of wealth and a huge amount of corruption. — Noam Chomsky