David Wessel Quotes

#1. I think it was seen as a symptom that the Chinese leadership may be really scared about their economy.Why would you want to depend more on exports if you're a country that has a stated policy of relying less on exports and more on consumer spending, domestic spending?

David Wessel

#2. Nobody really knows what the market is going to do, but it sure looks like we are going to have a lot more volatility.

David Wessel

#3. I think it's hard to understand in economics. It's easier to understand on psychology.It's a kind of panic or a sense that the world economy is just not in as good shape as we thought and so everybody is chasing everybody else.

David Wessel

#4. It may be that the U.S. stock market starts to rise if people think it's gone far enough.

David Wessel

#5. The only reason you would want your currency to fall, if you could control it, is in order to get more exports.

David Wessel

#6. I think the Chinese are really amateurs when it comes to running markets.

David Wessel

#7. I think oil prices are down for two reasons. One is, there is a lot of supply. There is a lot of supply because the U.S. now produces a lot of oil and there is a lot of supply because the Saudis seem to want to produce a lot of oil, maybe to punish the Iranians and the Russians.

David Wessel

#8. I think that the feel that maybe China is slowing down means it will be buying less from Africa and Latin America. That means Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola will sell less in Latin America and Africa. And so it is definitely related.

David Wessel

#9. People have put a lot of faith in the government's ability to get growth going in China. People have this, what I think, illusion that there are six people in China who really have their hand on every button. And what we're learning is, it's a very big economy and they're not that good at it.

David Wessel

#10. There is also a concern that there is a lack of demand of oil. And so when commodity prices fall, it's good if you happen to be a consumer, but it's sometimes seen as symptom of a weakening economy.

David Wessel

#11. I think the one thing that's going on here is that people are saying, uh-oh, the Chinese economy might be slowing more than we thought and the government is having a hard time stimulating it again.

David Wessel

#12. Chinese don't really believe in markets. They like stability, they like control.

David Wessel

#13. If you don't have a set of principles that you can explain for what you are doing, then how can anybody know what you're going to do next?

David Wessel

#14. If the government can't get the economy moving again, they have a lot of fundamental problems.

David Wessel

#15. China's stock market is not very big. And yet when stock market has a bad day in China, it seems, Europe has a bad day and then we have a bad day.

David Wessel