To provide a longer-term response to stable economic development, public authorities should speed up to design and implement stronger development policies, which in the medium run enable establishment of a better equilibrium in the contribution of various sectors to economic growth, which raise competitiveness of our economy and make it more formal. To find better development equilibriums even in the financial system, it would be necessary to draft policies that would promote a faster development of the non-bank financial sector and would support creation of capital and debt markets for private entities. Accomplishment of these objectives would preliminarily require strengthening of financial reporting standards; completion, accuracy and improvement of law-enforcement in terms of business relations development; as well as a better protection of creditors’ and consumers’ rights of financial institutions and products. In practical terms, these measures would expand financing resources for economic development, thus relatively decreasing its dependence on the banking sector. Also, public authorities should, through a close cooperation among them, review and improve the framework of measures for efficiently withstanding the extraordinary financial situations, being ready to engage the necessary financial, human and technological resources and carry out necessary legal and regulatory changes. Dear heads of the Albanian banking system, The events we have experienced in these 12 months make us believe that prior-to-crisis economic and financial balances are likely to shift to a new equilibrium.
And yet, even in this blessed state, there are too many unemployed and underemployed, just as there are in the rest of America. We can do better. America must do better. The question is: How? To create employment, we must have economic growth. The simplest of econometric equations posits that the key components of economic growth are domestic consumption, plus foreign demand for U.S.-produced exports, plus investment by businesses, plus spending by government. I think it is pretty clear to everyone who lives on the planet that in order to grow our economy and put our people back to work, we must rely on our ability to curry to domestic and foreign  1  The Great Recession’s end date was established by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which officially declares the beginning and end of recessions. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  consumption and invest here at home to produce the goods and services to sell in the marketplace. You’d have to be from Mars to believe that the federal and state governments will be the source of much direct spending stimulus to the economy. Presently, all eyes are focused on the budget negotiations in Washington as the debt-ceiling clock ticks on. Aesop’s classic fable comes to mind. Rather than work like ants to build and store for difficult times, our fiscal authorities – Congress after Congress, under Republican and Democrat leadership alike, and with presidents of both parties occupying the White House – have been proverbial grasshoppers.