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 well, but they decided they'd borrow a bit more and do even better.

We’ve taken the view that if the rest of the world would democratize and create market economies, that would spread the benefits of prosperity around the world, and that it would enhance our own prosperity, and our own stability and security, as well.

It’s the American leadership that has not played the role it should be playing and that leaders in other countries have been playing.

The essence of Africa’s crises is fundamentally it’s extreme poverty.

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

America’s government is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to meet the commitments.

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 year. Typically, it means money that’s coming due within 30 to 90 days.

Knowing that an economy is in decline is not enough. We must know why the economy is failing to achieve economic growth if we are to take steps to establish or reestablish it.

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 that everything will just work out abroad aren’t really coming to pass.

We had a booming stock market in 1929 and then went into the world’s greatest depression. We have a booming stock market in 1999. Will the bubble somehow burst, and then we enter depression? Well, some things are not different.