Politics

What's remarkable about Israel's economy is that in the last few years we have situations which, in any other country, would have been totally disruptive. The incredible thing is that none of these threats have a measurable impact on our economy!

Mathematician & Topologist, Solved the 4-Dimensional Poincaré Conjecture

I think transparency in this sense is a red-herring. A multi-strategy hedge fund could give an investor or the SEC it's daily trade blotter and accomplish 'transparency,' and the recipient would have no idea what to make of the trades.

I personally think that it's only the ignorant and populism pandering politicians who treat the hedge fund industry as a scapegoat for the financial crisis. It was the extremely heavily regulated investment banks who, risking their shareholders' money, levered their firms up to 40:1!

China realises that he who owns the brand, owns the wealth… For nations, brands give economic control, security and choice and are therefore extremely important.

Leading brand strategist and founding partner of Interbrand

If you look at the decade which ended in 2009, our estimate is around US$8 trillion. As previously mentioned, we believe this is a very conservative estimate because there are major parts of illicit flows that are not included in that figure.

I grew up in Canada and have a lot of friends in Argentina. In the early part of the 20th Century, Argentina was wealthier and had a higher per-capita income than Canada. The country had severe governance issues which impacted economic and social development.

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

There are two basic underlying reasons. Firstly dysfunctional politics and secondly economic mistakes.

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

Most fundamentally, the subprime bubble was created by- a surfeit of global liquidity due to large current account surpluses in China and other emerging economies and easy global monetary policies; a flawed private mortgage securitization process that funnelled the liquidity into poorly underwritten mortgage and other loans; and weak regulatory oversight that failed to catch and rectify the problems in the securitization process.

Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics & Economic Forecaster

Essentially therefore you have a three-pronged approach. Firstly privatisation, secondly cutting the size of the state and thirdly- collecting existing taxes (rather than imposing any new ones).

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

There is a significant part of the Greek economy- maybe 30-40%- is not in the 'official' books. That has to be reined in. To put this in context, if that is reined in… to a large extent, the revenue side of the Greek problem would be fixed.

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

The ability for hedge funds and other private investment product to advertise is certainly a big deal that will have lasting impact on the manner which these products are distributed and marketed.

I would essentially start by abandoning everything Osborne set out to do. I would be cutting taxes, not raising them. I would immediately reverse the VAT raise that he had. I would impose those within an hour of taking office.

Former Federal Reserve Member & Leading Labor Economics Scholar

The economy is in the doldrums and likely to worsen. The UK economy has performed worse than most Euro Zone countries, and the calls for a change, of course, are becoming pretty loud. The government's economic strategy is clearly in disarray.

Former Federal Reserve Member & Leading Labor Economics Scholar

They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice. I thought I would never see my family again.

The guards hung me by my wrists from the ceiling for eight days…. After a few days of hanging, being denied sleep, it felt like my brain stopped working. I was imagining things. My feet got swollen on the third day. I felt pain that I have never felt in my entire life.

They forced me to undress. Then they started squeezing my fingers with pliers. They put staples in my fingers, chest and ears. I was only allowed to take them out if I spoke. The nails in the ears were the most painful.