“Regulation is complicated and annoying, but it is civilization,” said Yale professor, Robert Shiller.

Bank of America is out of control, yet they’ll never do any time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live at home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the back yard,” said Matt Taibbi, [...]

Business people will know better than anyone that the pop in spending won’t last,” said John Taylor, an economics professor at Stanford University.

“Isn’t it funny when you walk into an investment firm, and you see all of the financial advisors watching CNBC? That gives me the same feeling of confidence I would have if I walked into the Mayo Clinic or Sloan Kettering and all of the doctors were watching the TV soap opera General Hospital,” said [...]

“If there is no monetary stimulus and no fiscal stimulus, obviously we are going to continue to grow slowly. We could be in secularly slow growth for decades,” said Harvard economics professor, Ken Rogoff.

“If you want to succeed, double your failure rate,” said Thomas Watson, the CEO who built IBM into a global force from the twenties to the fifties. He also said, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

“The investor in America sits at the bottom of the food chain,” said John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group of index funds.

“At some point in 2011, knuckles are going to be turning white, and we’ll see whatever rabbits Ben Bernanke is going to have to pull out of his hat,” said David Rosenberg of Gluskin, Sheff & Associates

“This year is going to be about chasing pennies and nickels in the bond market. Volatility is going to be very low. I expect the ten year bond to end up at a 2% yield,” said Mike Pond, co-head of US interest rate policy at Barclays Bank.

“The old yardsticks don’t seem to be working anymore,” said Art Cashin, a strategist at UBS.

“With slowing growth in the US and no growth in Europe, you are going to have to shave a few percentage points off of growth in China. If you look at the chessboard as a retail investor, we have a year or more in a sideways to down stock market,” said Dr. Peter Navarro, a [...]

“They got us into this mess, they’ve gotten great credit for getting out of this mess, and now they are creating even a bigger mess,” said the former chairman of Morgan Stanley International and a colleague of mine, Steve Roach.

“The US has repositioned itself better than any of its global competitors. Americans are doing what they do best. They’re adapting, they’re moving, they’re finding good, and they’re surviving. That’s where we need to be,” said Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital, and a former principal of the Bass Group.

“The biggest tumor that we are now facing for the economy is the shadow inventory of housing. We now have six million units that are delinquent, in default, or foreclosed, and 15 million other units for sale. Demographic demand can only soak up one million units a year. It is the biggest dilemma for homeowners,” [...]

“Real estate is always the drunk driver of the economy. Usually the problem is oversupply. This time it was an oversupply of debt,” said Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital, and a former principal of the Bass Group.