Dialogue in Davos: Top 5 Quotes From the Base of the Swiss S
Published: Jan 28, 2011
5. "The current regulatory debate is a bit like discussing having better seat belts on planes. It's hard to argue against, but when the plane crashes, it’s all a bit marginal ... The real focus of regulation should be on making the air traffic control system safe."
-Standard Chartered CEO Peter Sands
4. "What I most worry about is that in the next cycle, as the regulatory pendulum swings, we are going to have to use taxpayer money to bail out unregulated businesses that, unlike the banks in the last crisis, may not be able to repay them."
-Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn (whose comments have ticked off a few big hedge fund investors who did not appreciate the dig)
3. "I don’t lump all media together. There’s good and there’s bad. There’s irresponsible and ignorant and there’s really smart media. Well, not all bankers are the same. I just think this constant refrain [of] bankers, bankers, bankers is just a really unproductive and unfair way of treating people ... People should just stop doing that."
-JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (answering this question during a panel event: "What do you think about Americans directing their anger against the banks over the bailout?")
2. "We have to ask ourselves, are we in a market economy or a madhouse?"
-France President Nicolas Sarkozy (on the huge amounts of leverage banks used leading up to the financial crisis)
1. "They could move from the one-child policy to the two-child policy and begin, over time, to move that average down."
-Ernst & Young CEO James Turley (on how China could manipulate its demography to its advantage; Turley explained, in a WSJ interview, that come 2020, the average age of the population in both Western Europe and Japan will be 47 or 48; in the U.S. and China it will be about 37 or 38; and in India and the Middle East it will be 27 or 28 -- which, as Turley noted, will certainly have a big impact on education, retirement policies, consumer spending and economic dominance)
(DealBook)
(FT)
(WSJ)