Street protests in Saudi Arabia might warm our hearts, but they could easily lead to $250 a barrel oil and a global recession.
From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial 'boom' followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts.
I want people to understand that, look, we're in a period of democratic deficit, democratic recession. There are fewer democracies in the world today than in 2005, and in many of the countries that are still technically democracies, we're seeing a reduction in the rule of law. And that's especially true in Central Europe, but it's also true of places like South Africa, the Philippines.
The unemployment rate has effectively not gone down from where it was at the peak of the recession. The only reason it's gone technically from 10 percent to 8 percent is so many people are discouraged and have quit work.
I think governments are quietly terrified. There's massive unemployment, a recession they don't know how to deal with, and the measures they've taken are not working yet, and maybe they're not going to work. There's a prospect of significant social disorder.
When you're facing the threat of recession, you need to have an expansionary monetary and fiscal policy. Pre-Keynesian, Hooverite views are dead everywhere except on 19th Street in Washington.
So I think the winners in recession are the people who produce new technology that does things better, which people really want.
Americans don't think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.
The American people understand that it is grotesquely unfair - we are a society that prides itself on fairness, that prides itself on equal opportunity, and people are looking out and seeing, since the Great Recession of 2008, 99 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent.
I was in the White House, probably the only administration I'll ever work for. The administration was not a success, neither at home nor abroad. The Iraq War was not a success. The condition of the average person was not enough better at the end of seven years of George Bush than it was at the beginning, and certainly it all ended in the collapse that was the Great Recession. So I feel a sense of karmic obligation to the universe because of that.
As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession.
I am not for raising taxes in a recession, especially when it comes to job creators that we need so desperately to start creating jobs again.
No one saw the recession coming.
The difference between recession and depression is simple. Recession, goes the saying, is when you lose your job; depression is when I lose mine.
[Obama White House] rescued the economy from the worst recession.
The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of the recession because that would just suck up and take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.
If you listen to the news, read the news, you'd think we were still in a recession. Well, we're not in a recession. We've had growth; people need to know that. They need to be more upbeat, more positive.
I think it's been unfortunate, but it's happened, that since the Great Recession, the gains have all gone to the top. And we need to reverse that.
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.
I don't see any significant recession or depression in the offing.
