We draw many benefits from globalization that people take for granted. Poverty has been reduced massively around the world. If you look at the Chinese numbers, it is quite mind-boggling: 700 million people taken out of poverty in a matter of 40 years, the poverty rate having moved from over 30 per cent from hardly six per cent now. That would not have happened if there had not been globalization.
Christine LagardeWe cannot just look at a country by looking at charts, graphs, and modelling the economy. Behind the numbers there are people.
Christine LagardeYou know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.
Christine LagardeI think I have a male side about me and you have a female side about you. It's a question of repressing or not.
Christine LagardeWe would not be enjoying those cellphones and those tablets at the price where they are had it not been for globalization, both in terms of trade and in terms of constant technological innovation.
Christine LagardeOur fortunes rise together, and they fall together. 'All men are brothers,' said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility-to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.
Christine LagardeThose negatively affected by globalization, those who are losing their jobs, and losing their skills, people out of training, must be looked after. Governments must establish policies, and governments and companies must actually address that issue, so that those who lose out from globalization can be retrained, recycled, re-established, cared for.
Christine Lagarde