“The only surprise about the economic crisis of 2008 was that it came as a surprise to so many.”

International lending banks need to focus on areas where private investment doesn’t go, such as infrastructure projects, education and poverty relief.

What you measure affects what you do. If you don’t measure the right thing, you don’t do the right thing.

Poverty is what we call the extremes at the bottom.

When you don’t have equality of opportunity because you don’t have equal access to education, it just seems so outrageous. It weakens our economy and leads to more inequality.

Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.

American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created.

GDP tells you nothing about sustainability.

When I said “the pocket of the banks,” it is not necessarily a mercenary relationship. It is a mindset.

Amherst is a liberal arts college, committed to providing students with a broad education.

Anybody who knows about capitalism knows that bankruptcy is an essential part of capitalism.

Climate change is a reality.

We won’t have an economic recovery until Covid-19 is under control.

It’s easy to get rich by getting a state asset at a deep discount.

I grew up in a family in which political issues were often discussed, and debated intensely.

Inequality is a choice. It is not inevitable.

Letting bygones be bygones is a basic principle in economics.

China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.

[Therefore] holding a trial outside the court. I think that is fairness, that is justice, that is a civil society. Otherwise call it an evil society because everything is hidden.

When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.

Algeria was therefore only the beginning of something that was in development: this is why I say that it’s the global capitalist system that finally reacted against us.

In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure.

But all development programs of the United States and the European countries unfortunately exclude the private sector, which could make investments based on profitability.

Nothing is more stimulating and more salutary to (or for) the inner (or inward) development than the exemple of men devoted to the good.

We try to avoid the single-building syndrome. You have to look at the big picture. If you try to put social and cultural development ahead of economic development, it doesn’t work. You have to do it all together.