Eurozone Debt Crisis Quotes

American economists can't understand the German fear of inflation and the effects of inflation when dealing with the world economic crisis. They wonder why Germany pursues such a different course - 'Why can't they agree with us?' I would have thought it was fairly obvious.

The euro zone must strike for a better governance structure, and there is no alternative to that. Euro zone countries must either develop an exit mechanism for troubled members, or it should embrace a closer political union: an effective governance structure that is capable of enforcing rules.

The most pressing and significant problems in the global economy are unsustainable structural issues with regard to the E.U. - fiscal deficits and the structure of the E.U. itself.

We cannot allow the bankruptcy of a euro member state like Greece to turn into a second Lehman Brothers.

There was a real fear that a euro-zone bank might fail, that we'd have a sovereign debt problem in one of the larger European economies. That's dissipated, thanks largely to the action of the European Central Bank.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

The bottom line is that the euro is a failed experiment.

If European monetary policy is run according to German interests, huge structural imbalances will accumulate. The Germans will then either have to pay to correct those imbalances or agree that the euro should not be run primarily according to German interests. If they are unwilling to do either of those things, the euro can't survive.

In the end, the politics of the euro zone weren't strong enough to create a fully integrated fiscal union with a common banking system, etc.