When countries open up to trade, they generally benefit, because they can sell more, then they can buy more. And trade has two-way gain.

Social Security represents an $11 trillion unfunded obligation. And when I say unfunded obligation, I mean we have to come up with $11 trillion at some point to make the system whole.

All science is static in the sense that it describes the unchanging aspects of things.

The basic idea was that if a country would put its economy as an integrated piece of the world system, that it would benefit from that with economic growth. I concur with that basic view.

Well, I make a practice of not commenting on the role of the relative exchange value of our currency.

In Asia, a lot of successful economies that had been living on their own saving, decided to open up their financial markets to international capital in the early 1990s. So here were countries doing quite...

And one of our points of continuing conversation with our trading partners is the urgency of their taking steps to remove barriers to their improved growth performance.

Well, by the standards of a lot of countries, by Latin American standards, it wasn’t so bad.

I studied economics and made it my career for two reasons. The subject was and is intellectually fascinating and challenging, particularly to someone with taste and talent for theoretical reasoning and quantitative analysis.

The longer you wait, the less fun. If you wait until the bitter end, the whole economy can be destroyed.

The deficit – the U.S. knows our deficit is too large. We are committed to bringing it down. We are bringing it down. The deficit came in for fiscal year ’05 at considerably below where...

Goods move in response to price differences from points of low to points of higher price, the movement tending to obliterate the price difference and come to rest.

America’s planned contribution to the global AIDS fund is around a sixth of what is needed in 2003, according to the fund itself.

Well, I think the best thing we can do for the short term is move good energy legislation through to the Congress; I’m encouraged that there’s some prospect for that now.

If you have a lot of short-term debt, it means that all of that money can be demanded in a very short period of time. Technically, short-term debt means money that’s coming due within a...

And our big theme has been, you have made so much progress, we urge you on with the openings and market openings that have occurred. They clearly work and continuing on that path will produce...

Less emphasis on inventories, I think, may tend to dampen business cycles, because business cycles are typically in the grasp of inventory cycles and heavy industry cycles.

I was born in Champaign in 1918. From the neighborhood elementary and intermediate schools, I went to the University High School in the twin city, Urbana.

The Russian drama began at the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union mercifully ended. Russia and 14 other new countries emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Every one of those 15 new...

The global economy is in pretty good shape.

In the long run all producers are forced to use the most efficient methods or give place to others who do.

We, being the Western world, wouldn’t let Russia off the hook on debt. So there were demands on debt servicing in the early days until they ran out of reserves. There was no real aid...

Well, I think the global economy is in the position for continuing good growth with inflation well in check.

It’s not so unusual to run out of someone else’s currency.

And we have abundant natural energy resources in the country. We haven’t been taking adequate advantage of them, and we can burn coal in a clean way; we could improve the grid.

Well, I started out in the Federal Reserve as a young economist and spent about five years in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In 1947 I was elected Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows, an appointment that allowed me three years of freedom for study, research, and writing.

Unfortunately, the real focus in this country has not been on the rest of the world. It’s been on our own issues and our own problems. Fair enough. But it means that our simple hopes...

We can get more energy out of the north slope of Alaska; we have available the ability to make ourselves less dependent on those uncertain sources of supply from the Middle East. And it’s important...

It is true practically if not altogether without exception that the changes studied by any science tend to equilibrate or neutralize the forces which bring them about, and finally to come to rest.

Let’s start fresh with Russia on some real help and some real reform.

Well, such as opening up some sectors of banking, branch banking for instance. It isn’t a legislative matter, it’s a matter for administrative action.

There’s a lot of strength in the U.S., but there’s a lot of froth also. The froth will blow off. We’re going to have to face up to some realities that we’re not fully facing...

But clearly an economy that’s growing and expanding like this one – and it certainly is doing that with high GDP output, employment numbers strong, capacity utilization strong – that’s an environment in which the...

When people begin anticipating inflation, it doesn’t do you any good anymore, because any benefit of inflation comes from the fact that you do better than you thought you were going to do.

Most important, I have learned from my colleagues and students.

If we did go into a recession, something that’s always possible for the U.S. or Europe, we could lower interest rates and expand the money supply without worrying about the price of gold.

We continue to have a strong dollar policy; we continue to support the strong dollar policy. It’s been our policy and will continue to be our policy.

The possibility of saying anything about a thing rests on the assumption that it preserves its identity, or continues to be the same thing in the respect described, that it will behave in future situations...

Senior development specialists in the Treasury can be counted on one hand. America’s government is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because almost nobody in authority understands the actions that...

Well, the U.S. is running a current account deficit; we are creating lots of investment opportunities in the United States that exceed our own domestic savings rates, so the issue here is to encourage higher...

Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.

We’re going to have to forgive a great deal of the Soviet era debt. There’s no question about that. Let’s face up to that. We’re going to have to put in money if Russia is...

Everybody you talk to about insurance says the insurance market has become a lot more vibrant as a result of lifting, allowing the foreign direct investment.

The speed of communication, the speed of information transfer, the cheapness of communication, the ease of moving things around the world are a difference in kind as well as degree.

My father also happened to be an intellectual, as learned, literate, informed, and curious as anyone I have known. Unobtrusively and casually, he was my wise and gentle teacher.

The idea that the UN system could provide real leadership on the great development challenges will strain credulity in some quarters.

We have a serious structural deficit problem. And it needs to be addressed. The president is trying to address it through reforms of Social Security, but the problem is there with other entitlement programs like...