We were looking into an abyss a couple of months ago. Some of the worst-case scenarios seem to be much less likely now and there’s some more upside risk.

We’re going to get to the point where recovery is just not soaring and they’re going to do the same again. We’re going to have a very slow recovery from here

We definitely seem to be hitting a plateau but that doesn’t mean we’re going to bounce up in the next couple of years. We’ll be in this long period, maybe two years, of vulnerability.

They hope people think the recession won’t be so deep, so the banks’ losses won’t be so bad, so their equity will be worth something

—Kenneth Rogoff in a Bloomberg interview, May 6, 2009