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Punk rock has never really had much patience with musical virtuosity. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that for most of its history, punk has been actively hostile to virtuosity.

James Surowiecki

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James Surowiecki
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: April 30
Journalist
Writer
Meriden
Connecticut
James Michael Surowiecki
History
Hostile
Much
Accurate
Really
Punk
Never
Patience
Musical
Rock
Rocks
Virtuosity
Actually
Actively

More quotes by James Surowiecki

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Businesses that have gone through an episode of hyperinflation become understandably alert to the threat of it: at the first hint of inflation, they're likely to increase prices, since they've learned that if they don't, and inflation hits, their businesses will be wrecked.
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In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they'd never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy.
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Real politics is messy and morally ambiguous and doesn't make for a compelling thriller.
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The typical American corporation is a shareholders' republic the same way that China is a peoples' republic.
James Surowiecki
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In practice, downsizing is too often about cutting your work force while keeping your business the same, and doing so not by investments in productivity-enhancing technology, but by making people pull 80-hour weeks and bringing in temps to fill the gap.
James Surowiecki
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The business of America shouldn't be subsidizing business.
James Surowiecki
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If private-equity firms are as good at remaking companies as they claim, they don't need tax loopholes to make money.
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In terms of productivity - that is, how much a worker produces in an hour - there's little difference between the U.S., France, and Germany. But since more people work in America, and since they work so many more hours, Americans create more wealth.
James Surowiecki
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Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake.
James Surowiecki
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All things being equal, letting people make decisions for themselves will produce smarter outcomes, collectively, than relying on government planners.
James Surowiecki
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The fundamental problem with banks is what it's always been: they're in the business of banking, and banking, whether plain vanilla or incredibly sophisticated, is inherently risky.
James Surowiecki
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The smartest groups, then, are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other. Independence doesn't imply rationality or impartiality, though. You can be biased and irrational, but as long as you're independent, you won't make the group any dumber.
James Surowiecki
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One of the problems that exacerbates procrastination is the feeling that you have lots of different things to do and no clear sense of which matter more, when they should be done, etc.
James Surowiecki
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As technology improves, on-screen avatars look more and more like real people. When they start looking too real, though, we pull away. These almost-humans aren't quite right they look creepy, like zombies.
James Surowiecki
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Groups are only smart when there is a balance between the information that everyone in the group shares and the information that each of the members of the group holds privately. It's the combination of all those pieces of independent information, some of them right, some of the wrong, that keeps the group wise.
James Surowiecki
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Of course, presidents are always blamed or rewarded for the state of the economy.
James Surowiecki
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The fact that industries wax and wane is a reality of any economic system that wants to remain dynamic and responsive to people's changing tastes.
James Surowiecki
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The ban on sports betting does exactly what Prohibition did. It makes criminals rich.
James Surowiecki
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In the auto industry, there's one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster.
James Surowiecki
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If companies tell us more, insider trading will be worth less.
James Surowiecki