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Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design . . . The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.

John Kenneth Galbraith

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John Kenneth Galbraith
Age: 97 †
Born: 1908
Born: October 15
Died: 2006
Died: April 29
Diplomat
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Politician
University Teacher
John K. Galbraith
World
Versions
Described
Hails
Invention
Slightly
Celebrated
Innovation
Finance
Hail
Financial
Version
Lend
Design
Established
Unstable
Small
Wheels
Variation
Often
Exception
Skeptical
Without
Operations
Wheel

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The Senate has unlimited debate in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process.
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Genius is a rising stock market.
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The foresight of financial experts was, as so often, a poor guide to the future.
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Who is king in the world of the blind when there isn't even a one eyed man?
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According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.
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American university presidents are a nervous breed I have never thought well of them as a class.
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If you get a reputation for being honest, you have 95 percent of the competition already beat.
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However, it is safe to say that at the peak in 1929 the number of active speculators was less - and probably was much less - than a million.
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I think the role of the Federal Reserve is enormously exaggerated.
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Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.
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We shall have a race of men who are strong on telemetry and space communications but who cannot read anything but a blueprint or write anything but a computer program.
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In fact, the wage-price spiral is the functional counterpart of unemployment. The latter occurs when there is insufficient demand the spiral operates when there is too much and also,unfortunately, when there is just enough.
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We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.
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Conscience is better served by a myth.
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Talk of revolution is one of avoiding reality.
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In dealing with Mr. Nixon, it is not easy to be unfair. He invites and justifies all available criticism.
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Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.
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One can relish the varied idiocy of human action during a panic to the full, for, while it is a time of great tragedy, nothing is being lost but money.
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A more important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality.
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