Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
James Surowiecki
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: April 30
Journalist
Writer
Meriden
Connecticut
James Michael Surowiecki
Whether
Inherently
Business
Banking
Problem
Banks
Always
Sophisticated
Plain
Incredibly
Fundamental
Vanilla
Fundamentals
Risky
More quotes by James Surowiecki
Capitalism, after all, is no fun when real failure becomes a possibility.
James Surowiecki
Real politics is messy and morally ambiguous and doesn't make for a compelling thriller.
James Surowiecki
The truth is that the United States doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one.
James Surowiecki
Politically speaking, it's always easier to shell out money for a disaster that has already happened, with clearly identifiable victims, than to invest money in protecting against something that may or may not happen in the future.
James Surowiecki
In industries where a lot of competitors are selling the same product - mangoes, gasoline, DVD players - price is the easiest way to distinguish yourself. The hope is that if you cut prices enough you can increase your market share, and even your profits. But this works only if your competitors won't, or can't, follow suit.
James Surowiecki
Since the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland wants to remain a part of Great Britain, and since Ireland itself has shown little interest in reunification, the IRA's prospects for success through political channels have always been limited.
James Surowiecki
The profit motive, indecorous though it may seem, may represent the best chance the poor have to reap some of globalization's benefits.
James Surowiecki
Wall Street has come a long way from the insider-dominated world that was blown apart by the Great Depression.
James Surowiecki
Moviegoers love the intricacies of a crime all the more when it's for a good cause.
James Surowiecki
Movies' mistrust of capitalism is almost as old as the medium itself.
James Surowiecki
I think people don't understand compound interest because typically no one ever explains it to them and the level of financial literacy in the US is very low.
James Surowiecki
Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake.
James Surowiecki
Academics, who work for long periods in a self-directed fashion, may be especially prone to putting things off: surveys suggest that the vast majority of college students procrastinate, and articles in the literature of procrastination often allude to the author's own problems with finishing the piece.
James Surowiecki
In order to work well, markets need a basic level of trust.
James Surowiecki
In part because individual judgement is not accurate enough or consistent enough, cognitive diversity is essential to good decision making.
James Surowiecki
Behavioral economists have shown that a sizable percentage of people are willing to pay real money to punish people who are taking from a common pot but not contributing to it. Just to insure that shirkers get what they deserve, we are prepared to make ourselves poorer.
James Surowiecki
Breaking tasks down into smaller sub-tasks can be very useful.
James Surowiecki
Corporate welfare isn't necessarily a bad thing.
James Surowiecki
Developing countries often have hypertrophied bureaucracies, requiring businesses to deal with enormous amounts of red tape.
James Surowiecki
I tend to delay writing by doing more research - it's really the act of writing the piece that I have the hardest time with.
James Surowiecki
