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When everything is going well, the role of the state in the economy should be limited. When we are in a crisis, it's different.

While I'm optimistic about the direction the world is headed, generally, I think there is a need for constant vigilance and pressure on repressive governments.

It's difficult when you're an appointee of any administration to publicly come out and say before a crisis occurs to say that we need to do X, Y and Z to avoid a crisis, because you probably wouldn't be around very long if you did that.

The first thing you need to know, in order to establish some perspective and avoid panic, is that the violent government excesses we're seeing today are far from unprecedented.

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

Financial crises require governments.

Crises are part of life. Everybody has to face them, and it doesn't make any difference what the crisis is.

You see in times of crisis that extremist forces, populist forces, have a better ground to oversimplify things and to manipulate feelings. Feelings of fear.

If we are to maintain our position as a global economic leader, we've got to end the govern-by-crisis mentality that sets us back instead of moving us forward.

You need a real crisis before you have reforms.