Douglas Tompkins Quotes

I worry about another leg down in the economies causing social disruption because deleveragings can be very painful - it depends on how they're managed.

What I object to the current government intervention in so-called 'solving the crisis', they haven't solved anything. They've just postponed it.

It's a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment and of low growth.

In a normal time, I don't think economic policy makes a large difference one way or another. But in times of crisis it makes all the difference in the world.

… a depression is for capitalism like a good, cold douche.

I think one of the lessons of the Depression - and this is something that Franklin Roosevelt demonstrated - was that when orthodoxy fails, then you need to try new things. And he was very willing to try unorthodox approaches when the orthodox approach had shown that it was not adequate.

We all knew this. We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis.

There are different flavors of recession. You can get into some pretty dark scenarios pretty quickly.

The world is still in deleveraging.

Nationalization, unmentionable only yesterday, has entered common usage not least because an even scarier word - depression - is next on America's list to avoid.

Economic and financial crisis are getting much more usual, and they are not confined to a given country but they immediately spread all over the world, and you have to be prepared for that.

Discussions of the economy, especially during times of crisis, are often framed in terms of lessons we supposedly learned during the Depression of the 1930s. If we are not to endure terrible times like those again, we are told, we must support whatever form of state intervention is currently being peddled.

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement.

We have much more to fear from economic weakness in Europe than in economic strength in Europe.

… the sick man of Europe

We used to think that we could spend our way out of a recession…. I tell you in all candor that that opinion no longer exists.

I believe Europe is burning financially. Europe's problems are not going to go away. They are so structural. Yet, our problems are right behind them. We cannot just look at Europe.

During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator.

I did not forsee a day where the government had to intervene to bail out basically everybody.

We saw in Greece how dangerous it is if a country has a bigger and bigger debt, and I hope that we will not have a second Greece in our neighbouring country, Italy.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.

I think it's often discussed that leaving the Euro is an option for Greece. I think this is really not an option.

I think if there's a great depression there might be some hope.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

A very difficult year is ahead of us. We must continue our efforts with decisiveness, to stay in the euro, to make sure we do not waste the sacrifices and do not turn the crisis into an uncontrolled and disastrous bankruptcy.