You’ve got to make a bet on whether the financial system and the market system as we have known it since the end of World War II is going to survive. You certainly don’t sell on panic here. You buy.

—Barton Biggs

We’ve approached the edge of the cliff. Do we go over the cliff or begin to recede? History says we recede, but there’s no guarantee. This is the most difficult financial environment I’ve lived through.

—Leon Cooperman, 65, who manages $6 billion at hedge fund Omega Advisors Inc

The United States remains at the epicenter of the financial market turmoil that originated in the summer of 2007, and that has continued to reverberate and spread across the globe. The seriousness and the pervasiveness of the turmoil cannot be overstated.

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Financial institutions are in the midst of a significant deleveraging process—a process that accelerated a month ago and that has by no means run its course.

—John Lipsky, First Deputy Managing Director, IMF

The global financial system has undergone unprecedented turmoil in the last few months, and the situation has worsened considerably since Spring…Concrete actions, however, are needed to tackle insufficient capital, falling asset valuations, and a dysfunctional funding market.

—Jaime Caruana, Counsellor and Director of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department