Regulators Quotes

• If we want our regulators to do better, we have to embrace a simple idea: regulation isn't an obstacle to thriving free markets; it's a vital part of them.

  James Surowiecki

  Simple, Ideas, Want

  "The Regulation Crisis". www.newyorker.com. June, 2010.

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• The guiding purpose of the government regulator is to prevent rather than to create something.

  Alan Greenspan

  Government, Purpose

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.111, Penguin

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• Regulators are in the best position to regulate when they are intimately knowledgeable about the activities they are regulating.

  John Thain

  Knowledgeable, Position, Activity

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• Regulation has gone astray. . . . Either because they have become captives of regulated industries or captains of outmoded administrative agencies, regulators all too often encourage or approve unreasonably high prices, inadequate service, and anticompetitive behavior. The cost of this regulation is always passed on to the consumer. And that cost is astronomical.

  Edward Kennedy

  Agency, Cost, Gone

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• Regulators are power-lusting mediocrities.

  Yaron Brook

  Lust, Mediocrity

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• In a world of businessmen and financial intermediaries who aggressively seek profit, innovators will always outpace regulators; the authorities cannot prevent changes in the structure of portfolios from occurring. What they can do is keep the asset-equity ratio of banks within bounds by setting equity-absorption ratios for various types of assets. If the authorities constrain banks and are aware of the activities of fringe banks and other financial institutions, they are in a better position to attenuate the disruptive expansionary tendencies of our economy.

  Hyman Minsky

  World, Ratios, Portfolios

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• Freedom is the quality of being free from the control of regulators and tax collectors. If I want to be free their control, I must not impose controls on others.

  Hans F. Sennholz

  Being Free, Quality, Want

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• Enforced by genetics, sexual reproduction, perspective, and experience, the most manifest characteristic of human beings is their diversity. The freer an economy is, the more this human diversity of knowledge will be manifested. By contrast, political power originates in top-down processes-governments, monopolies, regulators, and elite institutions- all attempting to quell human diversity and impose order. Thus power always seeks centralization.

  George Gilder

  Government, Order, Top Down

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• Markets are imperfect. So you do need regulation, knowing that the regulators are also human.

  George Soros

  Knowing, Needs, Regulation

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• History is on the side of the regulators.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Sides

  Ha-Joon Chang (2007). “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism”, Bloomsbury Press

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• The Fundamental Regulator Paradox ... The task of a regulator is to eliminate variation, but this variation is the ultimate source of information about the quality of its work. Therefore, the better the job a regulator does the less information it gets about how to improve.

  Gerald Weinberg

  Jobs, Hard Work, Science

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• You can't overestimate what happens when you encourage regulators to believe that the goal of regulation is not to regulate.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Believe, Goal, Regulation

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• They've lied about everything.-about the fence, and the existence of Invalids, about a million other things besides. They told us the raids were carried out for our own protection. They told us the regulators were only interested in keeping the peace. They told us love was a disease. They told us it would kill us in the end. For the very first time I realize, that this, too, maight also be a lie.

  Lauren Oliver

  Lying, Disease, Firsts

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• It's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation.

  Henry Paulson

  Sound, Banking, Safe

  "CBS News' Face the Nation", www.cbsnews.com. July 20, 2008.

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• I think that when we talk about the regulators and the politicians, the economic consequences of bad decisions back in '08, you know, were devastating, and they had repercussions throughout the world.

  Hillary Clinton

  Thinking, Decision, World

  Source: www.buzzfeed.com

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• The constant need for special waivers is symptomatic of poorly written public policy. It's a signal that the cost of compliance is unreasonably high; the benefits are hard to measure; and either legislators or regulators have failed to do their homework.

  John Sununu

  Special, Needs, Cost

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• The corporation is not an independent "person" with its own rights, needs, and desires that regulators must respect. It is a state created tool for advancing social and economic policy.

  Joel Bakan

  Independent, Rights, Desire

  Joel Bakan (2005). “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power”, p.158, Simon and Schuster

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• The corporation is not a person; it is a legal fiction backed up by guns and police and jail cells and taxing authorities and the regulators called government.

  Jerry Brown

  Gun, Government, Cells

  "Jerry Brown, on Corporations and Jobs, We the People Radio Network archives". December 1995/January 1996.

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• I don't know about you, but I'm betting that when it comes to doing the right and good thing, the Little Sisters of the Poor know better than the regulators at the Department of Health and Human Services.

  Jeb Bush

  Health, Little Sister, Littles

  "JEB: 'no more powerful ... influence on this earth than the Christian conscience in action' - BRADY may miss 6-8 games -- B'DAY: Dana P". Politico Playbook, www.politico.com. May 09, 2015.

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• Government regulators are another name for police.

  James Cook

  Government, Names, Police

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• Instruct regulators to look for the newest fad in the industry and examine it with great care. The next mistake will be a new way to make a loan that will not be repaid.

  L. William Seidman

  Mistake, Political, Looks

  "Bill Seidman's Brilliant Advice To Regulators" by Joe Weisenthal, www.businessinsider.com. May 14, 2009.

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• A single agency responsible for systemic risk would be accountable in a way that no regulator was in the run-up to the 2008 crisis. With access to all necessary information to monitor the markets, this regulator would have a better chance of identifying and limiting the impact of future speculative bubbles.

  Henry Paulson

  Running, Impact, Agency

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• Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.

  Edmund Burke

  Political, Directors, Firsts

  Edmund Burke (1804). “Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.53

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• But the French writers always had more originality and independence than others, and that regulator, which elsewhere was religion, long since ceased to exist for them.

  Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Long, Independence, Religion

  Henryk Sienkiewicz (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz (Illustrated)”, p.6150, Delphi Classics

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• Apparently modern financial regulators are vastly more sophisticated than we were as financial regulators 25 years ago - because we had never figured out that the key to financial stability was leaving felons in charge of the largest financial institutions in the world.

  William K. Black

  Keys, Years, Leaving

  "Too Big to Jail?". Interview with Bill Moyers, billmoyers.com. October 3, 2014.

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