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

Letting bygones be bygones is a basic principle in economics.

Nationalization of private debts undermines prudential lender behavior and is a government intervention in the market.

If the President asked you to help, I don’t think anybody could refuse, unless one felt that one couldn’t be effective.

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

The U.S. basically wrote the rules and created the institutions of globalisation.

Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies.

The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.

Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight.

But while I loved all of these courses, there was an irresistible attraction of economics.

Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.

The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged – debating – helped shape my interests in public policy.

Multinational corporations must pay their fair share of taxes.

The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy are to spend money on common needs.

Society can’t function without shared prosperity.

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

Workers’ rights should be a central focus of development.

I don’t think any rapper can go back. You can be a car salesman, a bank teller – I mean, really good jobs, and people are still gonna look at you and be like, ‘You used to rap; what happened?’

After money in the bank, a grudge is the next best thing.

I know of only three people who really understand money. A professor at another university. One of my students. And a rather junior clerk at the Bank of England.

Any time three New Yorkers get into a cab without an argument, a bank has just been robbed.

A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him.

If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.

If there was a payment to the bank due, and we needed shoes, she’d get the shoes, and then deal with them guys at the bank. I don’t mean she wouldn’t pay the bank, but the children always came first.

Whether a bank lent one million, ten million, or a hundred millions, they would not permanently alter the market rate of interest; they would alter only the value of the money they issued.