Quote

The American people were really not 100% convinced that this idea of default was really going to occur, and I think the media, current company excepted here, did not help in that regard because they confused the American people about what default actually meant.

I'm afraid sometimes certain individual cases of defaults are unavoidable. What we should do is to step up monitoring, properly handle relevant matters, and ensure there is no regional and systemic financial risk.

Default choices often remain unchanged for no reason other than being the default, either because of this lack of information or humans' status quo bias.

So it won't be a surprise when the Greek default actually happens and we expect it one way or the other to be relatively soon.

Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we've got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.

Positive defaults align our short-term decisions with our long-term interests. And we don't always do that.

A default on our debts as a result of not meeting our obligations would be a disaster for the stock market, and Americans would see their retirement funds shrivel up.

There's not a doubt in my mind that you will see a spate of municipal-bond defaults.

Nobody wants the United States to default on its debt. Nobody. But, at some point in time, we've got to address the fiscal woes of this nation.