The United States basically accepted protection abroad as the price of post-war recovery. Now, that these countries have caught up to our level of prosperity, it is time for them to catch up to our level of openness.

In politics, as in poetry, it is sometimes true that it is darkest before dawn.

The United States basically accepted protection abroad as the price of post-war recovery. Now, that these countries have caught up to our level of prosperity, it is time for them to catch up to our level of openness.

It used to be said that when the U.S. sneezed, the world caught a cold. The opposite is equally true today.

It says something about this new global economy that USA Today now reports every morning on the day’s events in Asian markets.

Blaming speculators as a response to financial crisis goes back at least to the Greeks. It’s almost always the wrong response.

You can’t have a situation in which companies proceed on a permanent basis relying only on cash from the government.

It was wrong to allow Stalin to shape the European landscape of the 20th century. It would be even more wrong to let him shape the landscape of the 21st century.

The dramatic modernization of the Asian economies ranks alongside the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution as one of the most important developments in economic history.

Global capital markets pose the same kinds of problems that jet planes do. They are faster, more comfortable, and they get you where you are going better. But the crashes are much more spectacular.

Now is the time for us to strike. We must strengthen our foothold in Asia, to ensure no nation overtakes us.

We are inheriting the worst financial system since the Depression. We’re inheriting a situation – when people go back and study major banking crises a quarter century from now, the one that America developed in 2007 and 2008 is going to be one of those crises.

Start with the idea that you can’t repeal the laws of economics. Even if they are inconvenient.