I passionately disagreed with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's plan to bail out the banks by using a public fund called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help banks take toxic assets off their balance sheets. I argued that it would be much better to put the money where the hole was and replenish the equity of the banks themselves.

What works for Germany can't work for the rest of Europe: No country can run a chronic surplus without others running deficits.

There is a well-established conviction that the central banks always do what is necessary to keep the system going and then afterwards you then take care of the legal aspects. In a crisis, you simply do not have time to think about such concerns for too long.

When it comes to social consequences, they've got all different people acting in different ways, very difficult to even have a proper criterion of success. So, it's a difficult task.

Everything adds up to a major crisis. Humanity is faced with a global energy crisis ... The core of the crisis lies in the increasing shortage of oil.

An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.

It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong