Moral Hazard Quotes

It is so easy to be wrong-and to persist in being wrong-when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians' answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government. ... [H]aving someone else pay for medical care virtually guarantees that a lot more of it will be used. Nothing would lower costs more than having each patient pay those costs. And nothing is less likely to happen.

Men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

Why did we do the bailouts? It was all about the bondholders. They [the Treasury Department officials] did not want to impose losses on bondholders and we did. We kept saying, “There is no insurance premium on bondholders”… For the little guy on Main Street who has bank deposits, we charge the banks a premium for that, and it gets passed on to the customers. We don’t have the same thing for bondholders. They’re supposed to take losses.

No private enterprises should be allowed to think of itself as too big to fail. No taxpayer bailouts should allow executives or stockholders to relax.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God. Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world — of all living things. The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand. Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have. Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope.

I opposed the bailout of banks and car companies.

I think the bailouts in 2008 were wrong.

It’s very hard to write regulations that will prevent people from acting foolishly—particularly when acting foolishly has recently made them a lot of money.

I don't want to create a too-big-to-fail player.

The market, as we're all painfully aware in the aftermath of the banking crisis, can be an idiot. It has no perception of right or wrong, or even sensible or insane. It sees profit.

I think bankers will always get away with whatever they can get away with.

Debt, we've learned, is the match that lights the fire of every crisis. Every crisis has its own set of villains - pick your favorite: bankers, regulators, central bankers, politicians, overzealous consumers, credit rating agencies - but all require one similar ingredient to create a true crisis: too much leverage.

Not one criminal charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with the 2008 crisis. And in fact, it gets worse. No bonuses and none of their equity was taken.

I turned on Wall Street for the same reason everybody else did: The American taxpayer was forced to cut mook deals to bail out guys who didn't deserve it.

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.

I think Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner shared the view that they shouldn't be in the business of bailouts, but you know, you're not in the business of bailouts until you frankly think you need to be.

Most Ohioans would be surprised to know that the same Wall Street megabanks which received bailouts from taxpayers in 2009 also receive taxpayer-funded advantages today simply because of their 'too big to fail' status.

A lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional. A lot of people in the financial system did a lot of damage without intending to.

If the bankers knew so much about capital markets, how come they got into so much trouble.

As Americans, we shouldn't like bailouts. Where I come from, if someone takes a risk and they're going to make the profit from that risk, they shouldn't have the taxpayer pay for the losses.

If the government has any courage, it will punish those at the top of failed banks. Accountability is critical in every area of human endeavour - there has to be a penalty for failure; otherwise, it's only a matter of time before the economic pain our banks have caused to so many innocent businesses and homeowners is forgotten.

That is, many times we're not risking our own money, we're risking somebody else's money, or maybe that someone is going to back stop or downside, but we still get the upside.