Quote

It is a maxim of cryptology that what one man can devise, another can unravel. This principle keeps armies of tax lawyers and accountants employed, but adds nothing to our national productivity.

Walter Wriston

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Walter Wriston
Age: 85 †
Born: 1919
Born: August 3
Died: 2005
Died: January 19
Banker
Middletown
Connecticut
Walter Bigelow Wriston
Men
Principle
Armies
Keeps
Maxims
Army
Adds
National
Lawyers
Taxes
Productivity
Unravel
Principles
Employed
Devise
Another
Add
Maxim
Nothing
Lawyer
Accountants

More quotes by Walter Wriston

Image
As long as capital-both human and money-can move toward opportunity, trade will not balance.
Walter Wriston
Image
All of life is the management of risk, not its elimination.
Walter Wriston
Image
Capital will always go where it’s welcome and stay where it’s well treated. Capital is not just money. It’s also talent and ideas. They, too, will go where they’re welcome and stay where they are well treated.
Walter Wriston
Image
The Doomsayers have always had their uses, since they trigger the coping mechanism that often prevents the events they forecast.
Walter Wriston
Image
Risk is not a dirty word.
Walter Wriston
Image
There'll be a growing disparity between economics and politics. An economy that grows so rapidly is intractably global. On the other hand, the current political system is intractably national. So there is a growing dichotomy between a global economy and locally based politics.
Walter Wriston
Image
A country does not go bankrupt.
Walter Wriston
Image
A truly global economy, as opposed to the multinational economy of the recent past, will require concessions of national power ... that seemed impossible a few years ago and which even now we can but partly imagine.
Walter Wriston
Image
Capital goes to where it can escape taxation and be used to pay employees in sacks of rice.
Walter Wriston
Image
All the Congress, all the accountants and tax lawyers, all the judges, and a convention of wizards all cannot tell for sure what the income tax law says.
Walter Wriston
Image
Rising prices or wages do not cause inflation they only report it. They represent an essential form of economic speech, sincemoney isjust another form of information.
Walter Wriston
Image
The information revolution has changed wealth. Intellectual capital is far more important than money.
Walter Wriston
Image
We're not in cultures which support learning we're in cultures that give us the message consistently: Don't mess up, don't make mistakes, don't make the boss look bad, don't give us any surprises. So we're asking for a kind of predictability, control, respect, and compliance that has nothing to do with learning.
Walter Wriston
Image
Capital goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well treated.
Walter Wriston
Image
Countries don't go out of business....The infrastructure doesn't go away, the productivity of the people doesn't go away, the natural resources don’t go away. And so their assets always exceed their liabilities, which is the technical reason for bankruptcy. And that's very different from a company.
Walter Wriston
Image
Failure is not a crime. Failure to learn from failure is.
Walter Wriston
Image
Information is a business in itself. It is also something that has made control impossible ... you cannot get customers to accept prices in one place when they know there's a better deal elsewhere. It's a whole new world.
Walter Wriston
Image
The guy with the competitive advantage is the one with the best technology.
Walter Wriston
Image
I walk into all these organizations, and I'm always puzzled when I realize that people still want to be there. Most people really want to love their organizations. We need that level of commitment ... Yet organizations have done very little to deserve that kind of staying-power.
Walter Wriston
Image
Human capital will go where it is wanted, and it will stay where it is well treated. It cannot be driven it can only be attracted.
Walter Wriston