Peter Beck Quotations

The potential costs and risks for all three governments are too large to expect any one of them to alter course greatly

We believe that's going to significantly loosen up imports of Mexican cement, which I think will help not only with construction of hurricane-ravaged parts of the gulf, but also the South and Southeast both with supply and pricing.

Since joining Beck in 1976, Ellison's leadership and philosophy of making the customer number one has significantly strengthened the company. Now it is time to replicate his success in Florida in our international operations.

I believe that this partnership with Gehry Technologies is a great step forward in our objective to bring innovative and real-world solutions to our industry. The ability to move out into the marketplace with a partner like Gehry Technologies is a value-added benefit and coupled with our solutions, we can allow the industry to benefit from our history of building technologies to address issues faced by owners, developers and strategic planners on a daily basis.

China currently holds the biggest potential carrot and stick with the North.

Given the limited policy options they have, they don't have much of an alternative to talking.

When he went in 2001, it was almost exclusively military people. He was trying to convince them of the need for reform. Now, if he's bringing technocrats, he's trying to give examples of how reforms could take place.

What I'm interested in is who he's taking with him, rather than where he's going.

I think it's a nonstarter. It's not even a deal-breaker,

I think the visit will ultimately help them bring North Korea back to the table, but I'm not sure Pyongyang is serious about negotiating.

I think most of the world can live with that India is held to a double standard with North Korea.

Were (Kim's trip) purely for external consumption, there certainly would have been some photo ops. We have to assume that this was educational to learn how special economic zones function.

The problem is that Beijing places far greater priority on North Korean stability and regime survival than on the peninsula remaining nuclear-free.

Thus, China is committed to the six-party nuclear talks as a means of keeping the lines of communication open and maintaining the status quo. Beijing is satisfied to play the role of convener and occasionally arbitrator, not dealmaker or enforcer. Achieving a nuclear accord is purely optional.

Washington is certainly concerned that Seoul's North Korean policy will lean further to the left.

Even though the crackdown on North Korea's illicit banking activities in Macau demonstrated that China is not completely immune to outside pressures to rein in bad behavior, Beijing is unlikely to shut down the North's remaining banking activities.

As time goes on, I am expecting, I am waiting for North Korea to act in a provocative manner, to lash out verbally, potentially even with a missile or even a nuclear test. Especially as Washington continues to try to squeeze them, and they are going to look for a way to get the world's attention by saying or doing something that is provocative.

The very nature of sweeping reforms would be inherently destabilizing to the regime. So it's more likely they would be halting reforms.

The risk of this agreement is exactly what many hawks in Washington had warned about. You reduce the sense of urgency and let people grow comfortable with the status quo.

Presently, they don't seem eager to find a solution. Rather, they appear to be enjoying the status quo.

The bottom line is, they are many years away from food self-sufficiency. If they push the public distribution too far, they could easily be looking at another famine.

There's a new assertiveness in terms of dealing with the foreign aid community, ... That reflects a confidence that they can better manage their food situation.

I told him that if he wins, he'll still need to finish his homework... I'd hate to have to suspend a city official.

It looks like Tehran has taken a page out of Pyongyang's brinkmanship playbook.

It's getting darker by the day. We are slowly moving towards a showdown with North Korea.

It shows at least on the surface that the North would like to embrace China's reforms.

It sounds cliched but we live in a tough world at the moment and to jump away for two hours and look at some lovely costumes, hear a great band play with some great singers, to watch two people connect on the floor is a nice way to forget about all this other stuff.

The two parties agreed to disagree and papered over the differences. It will take a long time before North Korea will be accepted as a responsible member of the international community, at least 2 years.

Any American who watches Korea in Washington will watch closely how it will unfold.

That's a non-negotiating point. It's demands like these that have me worried there may be a lack of progress in the peace process.

For now, perhaps the only goal all parties can agree on is avoiding a crisis, but more meaningful engagement is needed if, in the long run, North Korea is not to loom as a flash point in Sino-U.S. relations.

This has reinforced everything we feared about North Korea's promises, but no one expected them to shove it in everyone's faces within 24 hours. It doesn't mean they're ripping up the piece of paper, they just like to keep everyone guessing.