Pithy Quotes for 2008 Bailouts?
So the never ending book is coming along. Thanks to Paulson, Bernanke, et. al., it just keeps getting longer.
One of the things I decided to do was throw a relevant quote, by a famous or infamous personage, into the beginning of each chapter. The idea was to set the tone for each chapter with some time tested wisdom or clever turn of phrase.
For example
“If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.”
-former Nixon Treasury Secretary George Shultz, said about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I have not come up with any quotes for the rest of the class of 2008 bailouts.
Any suggestions? The best quote gets an autographed copy of Bailout Nation, and my undying gratitude.
2008 Bailouts
1.Bear Stearns
2. Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac
3. AIG
4. Detroit / GM loans
(research loan already made, plus the new bailout request)
5. Home Owners Assistance
6. TARP
7. Lehman Brothers (the non bailout)
8. Citigroup ($25 + 20 + 306 billion)
9. Whoever is next
10. Whoever I forgot
Anyone have any great ideas?
November 24th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Schiff had a great one today re Detroit:
“Put simply, our government doesn’t have enough spare cash to bail out a lemonade stand let alone a bloated and failing industry that is losing tens of billions of dollars per month”
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/schiff/schiff112408.html
PS – you’ve got to tell your pal Charlie to “stop having a few” before going back on air for the 7:00 pm slot…. he can barely keep his eyes open and is even more belligerent than usual.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Chuck prince, Citigroup CEO: “When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing,”
November 24th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
The auto industry:
Senator William Proxmire: “We let 7,000 companies fail last year — we didn’t bail them out. Now we are being told that if a company is big enough… we can’t let it go under.” Chrysler Bailout, 1979. Somethings never change.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
aig: author unknown. the difference between the Titanic & AIG .. the Titanic had a band
November 24th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
“Indeed, the death of Lehman could be systemically helpful if it shows that the markets can survive a financial collapse without government cash shoring things up.”
-Felix Salmon, September 12, 2008
November 24th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
“It is obvious in the case of a subsidy that the taxpayers must lose precisely as much as the X industry gains. It should be equally clear that, as a consequence, other industries must lose what the X industry gains. They must pay part of the taxes that are used to support the X industry. And customers, because they are taxed to support the X industry, will have that much less income left with which to buy other things. The result must be that other industries on the average must be smaller than otherwise in order that the X industry may be larger.
But the result of this subsidy is not merely that there has been a transfer of wealth or income, or that other industries have shrunk in the aggregate as much as the X industry has expanded. The result is also (and this is where the net loss comes in to the nation considered as a unit) that capital and labor are driven out of industries in which they are more efficiently employed to be diverted to an industry in which they are less efficiently employed. Less wealth is created. The average standard of living is lowered compared with what it would have been.”
There is a lot that could be taken from chapter 14 of Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson on “Saving the X Industry,” though he was not necessarily the most pithy of fellows.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
“There’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk — that’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras — it got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments.”
–George W. Bush, speaking at a private fundraiser, Houston, Texas, July 18, 2008
November 24th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
AIG advertisement: “If disaster strikes will you have the protection you need?” (cite: http://www.lbhat.com/brands/aig-irony-or-cruel-joke/ )
November 24th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
-Donald Rumsfeld
November 24th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Jefferson:
“I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
~~~~
BR: I have a few Jefferson quotes in the early section on Central Banks . . .
November 24th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
“The essential Greenspan legacy . . . is the idea that the Fed will allow nothing to go really wrong”
- James Grant, publisher of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer
November 24th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
“Buying a house,” he said, “is not the same as buying a house on fire.”
- James Dimon, CEO JPMorgan, on his lowball offer for Bear Stearns
November 24th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Lehman/Greenspan twofer
“For a man who was once remarkably hard to decipher, Alan Greenspan is now as clear as an empty Lehman Brothers office.” Steve Goldstein Marketwatch
Breaking news US Treasury to repair Tom Brady’s knee.
“No Economy for Old Men.” Pywrite
Citigroup
“I went to the ATM this morning and it said insufficient funds. I left wondering if it was them or me.”
God has special providence for drunks, fools and the United States of America.
Capitalism for profits and socialism for losses.
There are no libertarians in a financial crises.
Sorry some may not apply. I got a little carried away.
Cheers!
November 24th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
-Robert J. Shiller
November 24th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
On financial derivatives (or maybe the TARP…?):
“Any tool can be a weapon… if you hold it right.”
Ani Difranco
November 24th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Author Unknown…”This has been worse than my first divorce. I’ve lost half my net worth but I still have my wife.”
November 24th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
it’s like shooting fish in a barrel…
“Despite Housing Slump, Crashes Such as in 1987 Likely to Stay Memories”
- Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2007
“These institutions [Fannie and Freddie] are fundamentally sound and strong. There is no reason for the kind of [stock market] reaction we’re getting.”
- Christopher Dodd, Chair, Senate Banking Committee,
Financial Post, July 12, 2008
“Bank shares are so cheap – and dividends so high – that some of the world’s biggest investors now say the combination is unbeatable.”
- Bloomberg, October 30, 2007
“Give me control of a nation’s money, and I care not who makes the laws.” Mayer Rothschild in 1836
“I would like to say to Milton and Rose: Regarding the Great Depression you’re right, we [the Fed] did it [caused the depression]. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you [Friedman] we won’t do it again.” Ben Bernanke
“While I was aware that these [questionable] practices were going on, I had no notion of how significant they had become until very late. I really didn’t get it until late in 2005 and 2006.”
- Alan Greenspan on “60 Minutes”, September 13, 2007
“I suspect that we are coming to the end of the housing downturn, as applications for new mortgages, the most important series, have flattened out…I think that the worst of this may well be over.”
- Greenspan, October 1, 2006
“Events that models only predicted would happen once in 10,000 years happened every day for three days.”
- Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2007
“Lowering interest rates will certainly help the stock market. There is no question about it.”
- Bloomberg, September 11, 2007
“The worst is over.”
- Warren Buffett, on Bloomberg TV, May 3, 2008
“Chairman Bernanke has succeeded; the economy has been positioned on a sustainable track for manageable expansion: A Goldilocks scenario that is neither too hot nor too cold.”
- Financial Post, April 25, 2007
- The rave was from Mike Thomson at Thomson Financial
“Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works.”
- John Stuart Mill, 1867
“Derivatives, particularly in the oddly named credit default swap market, which essentially insures the holders of debt losses, also play a big role in reducing the risk in lending money. Now the biggest banks don’t hold much debt, having sold it to others.”
- Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2007
____________________________
guidepostings.blogspot.com
November 24th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Gotta have Warren Buffet’s famous quote in there somewhere: “Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction”
November 24th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Lee Hoskins, a former president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, says of Bernanke:
“The Fed has violated two principal tenets of central banking. First, don’t lend to insolvent institutions, and second, don’t lend on anything but the most pristine collateral — and at a penalty rate.”
I think that was said in reaction to the TARP, but it could have been said about a few others on your list! The source was Barrons this past weekend, cited at http://pictorial-guide-to-crisis.blogspot.com/2008/10/federal-reserve-balance-sheet-oct-8.html
November 24th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Here are several Ferengi Rules Of Acquisition (a race of immoral/amoral profiteers on Star Trek)
#1. Once you have their money, you never give it back.
47. Never trust a man wearing a better suit than your own.
111. Treat people in your debt like family … exploit them.
125. You can’t make a deal if you’re dead.
239. Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
284. Deep down, everyone’s a Ferengi
(The unwritten rule) When no appropriate rule applies, MAKE ONE UP.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
“Permitting such losses to occur is what deters most other people and institutions from taking imprudent risks. Now especially, after a decade of prosperity and buoyant financial markets, a reminder that foolishness carries a price would be no bad thing. Will investors in the next problem-child-to-be, having been lulled by the soft landing… be counting on the Fed too? On balance, the Fed’s decision to get involved. – though understandable given the panicky conditions… regrettably squandered a choice opportunity to send the markets a needed dose of discipline.”
- When Genius Failed
(c) 2000
November 24th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Dividing Citibank into “Good Bank, Bad Bank, and Fucked Bank”
P. Kedrosky
November 24th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
When asked if we would learn anything from this ongoing crisis, he answered:
“We will learn an enormous amount in a very short time, quite a bit in the medium term, and absolutely nothing in the long term. That would be the historical precedent.”
Jeremy Grantham, Chairman, GMO LLC
November 24th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
During this entire episode I’ve frequently imagined what Will Rogers might have thought… fortunately, there’s a fair amount of pithy quotes that fit nicely:
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.
If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?
It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.
Last year we said, ‘Things can’t go on like this’, and they didn’t, they got worse.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.
Edgar R. Fiedler
* * *
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
Henry Ford
* * *
One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
Arnold H. Glasow
November 24th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
One I always come back to:
“The four most expensive words in the English language are, ‘This time it’s different.’”
- Sir John Templeton (1912-2008)
November 24th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
March 11, 2008 –
Cramer told an e-mailer not to sell the beleaguered investment bank’s stock on his show’s Web site:
“Dear Jim: Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there? –Peter
Cramer says: “No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear.”
~~~~
BR: I thought the emailer was referencing pulling his account from Bear, not owning its shares . . .
November 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results.
Scott Adams
* * *
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
* * *
The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.
Josh Billings
* * *
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
Confucius
* * *
Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country.
Norman Cousins
* * *
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.
Thomas A. Edison
* * *
Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.
Evan Esar
* * *
A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn’t keep us from buying it.
William Feather
* * *
Ask five economists and you’ll get five different answers – six if one went to Harvard.
Edgar R. Fiedler
* * *
About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
Herbert Hoover
* * *
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
Laurence J. Peter
November 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Here is one of my favorite quotes of all time, ironically made by a conservative.
I think it is an apt description of a certain ideology that has colored our fiscal governance.
“He had only one idea, and that was wrong.” – Benjamin Disraeli, in his novel Sybil
~~~~
BR: I used this in the Greenspan section
November 24th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Phil Gramm 7/10/08
“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. “We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet.”
“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline” despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.
“We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today,” he said. “We have benefited greatly” from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.
“Misery sells newspapers,” Mr. Gramm said. “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”
November 24th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Hard to judge the best application of this one without seeing the manuscript, but if you add a chapter on the home builders, that would be my suggestion:
Benefactor, n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without, however, materially affecting the price, which is still within the means of all.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
November 24th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
5. Home Owners Assistance
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
Oscar Wilde
November 24th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Michael Lewis:
Then came Meredith Whitney with news. Whitney was an obscure analyst of financial firms for Oppenheimer Securities who, on October 31, 2007, ceased to be obscure. On that day, she predicted that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. It’s never entirely clear on any given day what causes what in the stock market, but it was pretty obvious that on October 31, Meredith Whitney caused the market in financial stocks to crash. By the end of the trading day, a woman whom basically no one had ever heard of had shaved $369 billion off the value of financial firms in the market. Four days later, Citigroup’s C.E.O., Chuck Prince, resigned. In January, Citigroup slashed its dividend.
…
Now, obviously, Meredith Whitney didn’t sink Wall Street. She just expressed most clearly and loudly a view that was, in retrospect, far more seditious to the financial order than, say, Eliot Spitzer’s campaign against Wall Street corruption. If mere scandal could have destroyed the big Wall Street investment banks, they’d have vanished long ago. This woman wasn’t saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt. She was saying they were stupid. These people whose job it was to allocate capital apparently didn’t even know how to manage their own.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Steve Barry deserves the credit for already identifying this quote from Citibank CEO Chuck Prince, but this version includes a link to the original source (we featured it in our post
Efficient and Rational, Yet Stupid“):
Here are the immortal words of former Citibank CEO Chuck Prince as reported by the Financial Times’ Henry Kaufman:
Hope this helps!
November 24th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC to 43 BC)
November 24th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Nothing is easier than spending the public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody
-Calvin Coolidge
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics
-FDR
He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind
-Proverbs 11:29
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently
-Henry Ford
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge
-Charles Darwin
There is a danger of expecting the results of the future to be predicted from the past.
-John Maynard Keynes
The Earth has moved and the system is reorganizing itself under great pressure
-Paul Volcker
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
-Ben Franklin
The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.
-Warren Buffett
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely
-John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
You can use leverage, and it’s the only way a smart guy can go broke. If you do smart things and use leverage and do one wrong thing along the way, it could wipe you out, because anything times zero is zero.
-Warren Buffett
November 24th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
About Lehman Brothers, Mr. Micawber (of David Copperfield) said: “Something is bound to turn up.”
November 24th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
at this juncture, I have, only, comments, on the comments..
The Chuck Prince quote needs to be inscribed in Marble.
Meredith Whitney’s likeness should be sculpted from Marble..
Phil Gramm, much like Lot’s wife, should be turned into a pillar of Marble (salt).
November 24th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!!!” — Arthur Carlson, WKRP in Cincinnati (i just read this over at seeking alpha about the Tarp ,” take a stand against gov’t spending
November 24th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
John Maynard Keynes:
“Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.”
~~~
BR: I may use this to replace the now challenged Cicero quote
November 24th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
“The inherent vice of capitalism is th unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Sir Winston Churchill
“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.” Frederic Bastiat
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” John Adams
November 24th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
1.Bear Stearns
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
3. AIG
If you ain’t just a little scared when you enter a casino, you are either very rich or you haven’t studied the games enough. ~VP Pappy
4. Detroit / GM loans
(research loan already made, plus the new bailout request)
“Remain hungry but do not start begging.”
Turkish Proverb
5. Home Owners Assistance
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882), ‘Art,’ 1841
6. TARP
Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears.
Robert W. Sarnoff
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
Senator Everett Dirksen (1896 – 1969)
7. Lehman Brothers (the non bailout)
Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit. ~R.E. Shay
8. Citigroup ($25 + 20 + 306 billion)
A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one.
Lord Jeffery
Others
Never spend your money before you have it.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)
November 24th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
5. Home Owners Assistance
“And what we have now is more dissaving, where you have got a spike in credit card usage because consumers are trying to keep up their level of consumption, when they should be reducing it and saving. So, Mr. Market is going to have to kick their teeth down their throat to change their behavior.”
-David Goldman
November 24th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
4. Detroit/GM loans
“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”
Albert Einstein
6. TARP
“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.”
Senator Everett Dirksen
“Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Others:
“Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.”
Pearl Buck
“Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears.”
Robert Sarnoff
November 24th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
“We don’t see any pressure on our liquidity, let alone a liquidity crisis,” Bear Stearns President and Chief Executive Alan Schwartz said on Wednesday, March 12, 2008. Four days later, on Sunday, March 16, 2008 when JP Morgan Chase announced its takeover of Bear for about $2 per share, he said, “The past week has been an incredibly difficult time for Bear Stearns. This transaction represents the best outcome for all of our constituencies based upon the current circumstances,”
http://www.reuters.com/article/bankingFinancial/idUSN1217286920080313
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080316005053&newsLang=en
November 24th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
10. Whoever I forgot
Law 27 – Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.
Cold hearted truths…
http://www2.tech.purdue.edu/cg/Courses/cgt411/covey/48_laws_of_power.htm
November 24th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
here’s a couple for you Barry:
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
sounds like the basis for a good accounting rule….
“As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed. You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out — and what we are witnessing at some of our largest financial institutions is an ugly sight.”
Warren Buffet – Berkshire Hathaway annual letter.
I wonder if he had anyone specific in mind…..
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
– Galileo Galilei
These were aimed at war, but are equally as good in any crisis….
A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.
George W. Bush
hmm George, indeed it would…
“the single greatest barrier to home ownership is a high down payment”
George W. Bush May 17 2002.
yes… lets remove that portion, and the bit about being able to make the payments, barriers down let the buying begin….
you have to have this one in there somewhere…
“U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Wednesday that the market impact of the U.S. subprime mortgage fallout is largely contained and that the global economy is as strong as it has been in decades.”
Jan 2007.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
“Nothing is fucked here, Dude.”
Walter Sobchak
November 24th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
This one is “outside the box”, but I think it will fit great in your book.
Pitifully Predictable, Correctly Political
I’m the new, I’m the new, new model
I got nothing inside
– Marilyn Manson – New Model No. 15
November 24th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Let’s not forget this one, part of the real reason behind this whole house of cards – the agencies that rated all this crap in the first place:
Internal communications obtained by the committee and presented during the hearing included disturbing comments of employees within the agencies.
+ “Sometimes, we drink the koolaid.”+(Moody’s)
“It could be structured by cows and we would rate it.” (S&P)
” Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.” (S&P)
The panel claimed these statements included inappropriate language and were taken out of context.
Source: Many if you search for those quotes. Here’s one: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-121561
November 24th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Re-reading what I posted, that is infuriating. They get embarrassed in front of Congress then walk away? These pricks should be in jail.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I find no quote more fitting for your chapter Barry than the one spoken by the president condemning Bail outs in Sept 07:
“The Federal government will not bail out lenders — because that would only make a recurrence of the problem more likely. And it is not the government’s job to bail out speculators, or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford.” – George W. Bush
My how things change in a year and it seems like this problem is likely to recur
November 24th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
“I have no interest in bailing out lenders or property speculators. ” – Hank Paulson, October 2007
November 24th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Speaking of Bush- July 08
“There is no question about it. Wall Street got drunk,” the president said at a Houston fundraiser after asking audience members to turn off their video cameras. “That’s one reason I asked you to turn off your TV cameras. It got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. The question is, How long will it [take to] sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?”
November 24th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
On the TARP
” “They’re taking the assets away from the competent people, giving them to the incompetent people and saying to the incompetent: ‘OK, now you can compete with the competent people, with their money.’ I mean, this is terrible economics.” – Jim Rogers
Bear Stearns
- “Bear Sterns is going to be the star of the bears”
(I dont wanna sound cocky, because I try to keep my head on the ground, but that was me late last January). I’ll send anyone the article who wants a link.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
“It is not exactly a bailout,”
Edward M. Liddy, the CEO of A.I.G. , November 10, 2008,
“It is not exactly a bailout, because the American taxpayer will and has been offered considerable returns due to their equity stake in AIG,” Liddy said. “This plan is a win-win: When things get better, the government will do well, and AIG will do well.”
“We cannot continue to hemorrhage cash in posting collateral for credit default swaps,” said AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy. “We need to stop that, and we need to stop that now.”
http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/10/news/companies/aig/index.htm?postversion=2008111016
“The terms of the relation are commercial in nature,” he said, adding that everything was being done at “market interest rates.”
Edward M. Liddy, the CEO of A.I.G. , November 10, 2008,
http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/unbelievable-words-from-aig/#more-697
November 24th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
“The most painful part of this restructuring would be hanging pensioners out to dry. But is it better to saddle our children with the costs of supporting these pensioners? This is a painful dose of medicine for the industry.”
- Lewis Brazelton November 2008, I will send you the newsletter if you like.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Pick ‘em for any of the above (#6?)
“I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated. ”
– Poul Anderson
November 24th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Someone else already posted a piece of the Paul Kedrosky quote from today but let me add a bigger chunk as it is hilarious because it is true…
“Assets are not, apparently, being taken off the Citi balance sheet and put into another entity walled off from the Citi biological host. Instead, they are being left on the Citi balance sheet, but tagged and bagged for eventual disposal via taxpayers. In other words, we are, given the size and nature of the maneuver, creating a new variant on the good/bad bank model that I hereby christen ‘fucked’ bank.”
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2008/11/24/good_bank_bad_b.html
November 24th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
‘I’m not interested in bailing out investors, lenders and speculators.’ – Paulson, 3/2/08
November 24th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
“When someone proposed the ‘good bank/bad bank’ solution, I never dreamed the US Treasury would be the bad bank.”
- Trader Scott Miller (no relation)
November 24th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
On Lehman,
Who would expect an institution that survived two world wars to go under?’
— Dr Ahmad Magad, Singapore MP
November 24th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
On the cumulative effect of the bailouts, fiscal stimulus, etc.
“And that I guarantee you: The US government will go bankrupt; It’s only a question of time.”
Marc Faber, October 13, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P39×9QfUNSQ
Too late for more now.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
1.Bear Stearns
If you need a bailout, be sure you have a good bridge partner.
2. Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac
Barney Frank ruined Fannie and Freddie and won a bigger majority in Congress.
3. AIG
Hank Greenberg created a high-risk culture that made him poor again.
4. Detroit / GM loans
(research loan already made, plus the new bailout request)
Rick Wagoner gave private jets a bad name.
5. Home Owners Assistance
Never have so many been paid so much for their lies.
6. TARP
Give Congress a three page memo and they’ll turn it into an financial crisis.
7. Lehman Brothers (the non bailout)
Some guys just don’t know when to take their losses.
8. Citigroup ($25 + 20 + 306 billion)
Sandy Weill made Rube Goldberg look like a Steve Jobs.
9. Whoever is next
Every generation has its Rick Wagoner, Barney Frank and Hank Paulson.
10. Whoever I forgot
Whatever happened to Jimmy Ling?
November 24th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I don’t know where to put this, and it’s almost too easy picking on Cramer – but how can you not love this one?
Re: Bear Stearns funds imploding
“And I believe there will be NO FALLOUT [emphasis Cramer's] whatsoever beyond the funds, despite the innate desire by so many people to rumor and panic the marketplace. ” – Jim Cramer
This column was originally published on RealMoney on June 22 at 9:01 a.m. EDT.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10364422/1/why-the-bear-stearns-mess-will-be-contained.html
November 24th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Nancy Pelosi:
“CEOs getting off a corporate jet, rattling a tin cup is not a good image.”
November 24th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Mario Andretti:
“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
November 24th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
3. AIG
Hank Greenberg created a high-risk culture that made him poor again.
AIG hired a Yale professor to build a risk management computer model that proved the garbage in garbage out theorem.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Home Owners Assistance
The house was more covered with mortgages than with paint.
George Ade (1866-1944)
AIG
I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor.
Rabelais (1490-1553)
Bear Stearns
He that has lost his credit is dead to the world.
Herbert (1593-1632)
Lehman Brothers
Bankruptcy is a legal proceeding in which you put your money
in your pants pocket and give your coat to your creditors.
Joey Adams (b. 1911)
Citigroup
Finance is the art of passing currency from hand to hand
until it finally disappears.
Robert W. Sarnoff (b. 1918)
TARP
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are:
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Ronald Reagan (born 1911)
Home Owners Assistance
Interest works night and day, in fair weather and foul.
It gnaws at a man’s substance with invisible teeth.
Beecher (1813-1878)
November 24th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R. -Tex.), chairman of the House Republican Study Committee.
“Inaction has never been an option, but the Paulson plan should have never been the only option. In my heart and in my mind, I believe that this plan is fraught with unintended consequences, would force generations of taxpayers to pick up the tab for Wall Street losses, and could permanently and fundamentally change the role of government in the American free enterprise system. Once the government socializes losses, it will soon socialize profits. If we lose our ability to fail, we will soon lose our ability to succeed. If we bail out risky behavior, we will soon see even riskier behavior.”
Well said Jeb, well said.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
“Oh no. We’re in the hands of engineers!”
Ian Malcom, Jurassic Park
November 24th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
“Like a toilet, the government should be flushed after each use.” Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
November 25th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Every time I hear Paulson say, “We do not consider any company too big to fail,” I keep hearing this really old wart-ridden HAG screaming at the top of her lungs: LIAR, LIAR, LIAAAAR!!! (Princess Bride).
November 25th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Was it Mitt Romney who joked that his wife complained that the financial crisis is worse than divorce because she has lost half her wealth and is still stuck with him?
November 25th, 2008 at 12:04 am
“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.” Jackie Mason
November 25th, 2008 at 12:09 am
“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.” — Paul Gauguin
November 25th, 2008 at 12:14 am
“If there is another natural disaster, we’ll respond in better fashion,” Bush said.
8/29/06 — Reuters News Service
November 25th, 2008 at 12:16 am
“I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me Superman.” Homer Simpson
November 25th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Warren Buffett –
“You always find out who’s been swimming naked when the tide goes out. We found out that Wall Street has been kind of a nudist beach.”
November 25th, 2008 at 12:18 am
The “you have failure” quote offers a great contrast as well….
“Some said we should just stick capital in the banks, take preferred stock in the banks,” Paulson said. “That’s what you do when you have failure.” – Hank Paulson, September 23, 2008
“From the $700 billion financial rescue package, Treasury will make $250 billion in capital available to U.S. financial institutions in the form of preferred stock.” – Hank Paulson, October 14, 2008
November 25th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Regarding why nobody heard Lehman’s pleas…
“When your head is up your ass, nobody can hear you scream”
Actually that applies to an awful lot of all this…
November 25th, 2008 at 12:28 am
I’m not sure where to put it, but don’t forget this famous quote:
“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.”
Andrew Jackson to a delegation of bankers – 1832
—-
This great Bushism could also go almost anywhere:
“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”
George W. Bush, May 5, 2000
—-
On TARP:
“I do not see where writing ourselves a $700 billion check with a promise to pay ourselves back at a later date after we finally achieve a singular victory is evidence of anything other than psychotically self-delusional behavior.”
Howard Simons, Posted to RealMoney, 9/26/08
—-
On Greenspan:
“It’s ironic that the man who was famous for only one new idea: that you can’t spot a bubble before it pops but you need to be vigilant in cleaning up afterwards, never realized his reputation was a bubble. And now he’s simply trying to clean up the mess afterwards.”
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to identify the original author of this one. Maybe somebody here knows?
—-
On GM
“When Good is not enough”
Chevrolet Aveo marketing slogan
—-
On Lehman:
“Where Vision Gets Built”
Lehman Brothers marketing slogan (you’d think they would have seen what was coming)
—-
Looking ahead, if Prudential Insurance goes under:
“the saddest and most poignant piece of rock in the world.”
Mark Twain (referring to the Lion of Lucerne)
November 25th, 2008 at 12:35 am
For the Bear Stearns Chapter:
“Sometimes you eat the bear — sometimes the bear eats you.”
— Erwin “Preacher” Roe
November 25th, 2008 at 12:41 am
This one never stops being funny:
“Bush and his Republican advisers have one hope: that last week’s terror scare will awaken Americans to the fact that the nation is indeed engaged in what the president and Prime Minister Tony Blair quite correctly have been calling a war to preserve Western civilization. If that happens, the president will find himself blessed with a more conservative Congress, which would be good news for corporate America, desperate to have its research and development tax credit renewed, and the provisions of Sarbannes-Oxley relaxed.”
Irwin M. Steltzer, columnist, the Weekly Standard, issue of 8/21/06.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:44 am
“We refused to touch credit default swaps, it would be like buying insurance on the Titanic from someone on the Titanic.” – Nassim Taleb
From Bloomberg.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Some 2006 luv from George Will:
“This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional.” —
Columnist George Will, Washington Post, 8/15/06.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:49 am
“Do not use open flame to check for propane leaks.”
– Sticker on our gas grill.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:53 am
and of course:
“It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal?”
Andrew Lahde
November 25th, 2008 at 12:54 am
“You’re going to need a bigger boat.”
Quote by the Fed to taxpayers, January 20, 2009
-
–
—
—-
(original quote by Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Jaws, 1975)
November 25th, 2008 at 12:55 am
“CAPITALISM WITHOUT LOSS IS LIKE RELIGION WITHOUT HELL”
November 25th, 2008 at 1:07 am
I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?
Yogi Berra
November 25th, 2008 at 1:08 am
GM chapter
“Like a rock…”
November 25th, 2008 at 1:21 am
“The middle-of-the-road policy is not an economic system that can last. It is a method for the realization of socialism by installments.”
“Interventionism cannot be considered as an economic system destined to stay. It is a method for the transformation of capitalism into socialism by a series of successive steps.”
“The interventionist policy provides thousands and thousands of people with safe, placid, and not too strenuous jobs at the expense of the rest of society.”
“Credit expansion is not a nostrum to make people happy. The boom it engenders must inevitably lead to a debacle and unhappiness.”
-Ludwig von Mises
http://www.mises.org/quotes.aspx
November 25th, 2008 at 1:26 am
(1) Fannie Freddie
“We have no plans to insert money into either of those two institutions,” Paulson said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” broadcast today from Beijing.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aULVZ2mAF9es&
(2) Overall
The U.S. Congress is unlikely to pass new legislation to overhaul financial regulations this year because “no one knows what to do,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today.
“We are in new territory, this is a different game,” Reid said at a briefing in Washington. Neither Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke nor Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “know what to do but they are trying to come up with ideas,” Reid said.
Reid said that Paulson “recognizes that nothing is going to be done this year.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aDXSrZc6VWYw&refer=home
(3) Overall
Frank plans “oversight of what happened this weekend with the Treasury and Federal Reserve,” and will look at “how bad the capital markets are, and what may be needed.”
“The markets are not self-correcting,” the aide said. “If they continue to not self-correct over the next several months, is there a federal response? There might be more federal intervention that’s needed. We’ll proceed cautiously, and that would be next year.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13514.html
(4) Overall
“I and others were mistaken early on in saying that the subprime crisis would be contained,” Bernanke said in an article in the Dec. 1 issue of The New Yorker magazine.
“The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict,” he said in the piece titled “Anatomy of a Meltdown.”
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081123/D94KRSM80.html
(5) BSC
From the Bear Stearns Annual Report 2006:
We act in a manner that is based on, or characterized by, good judgment and sound thinking.
(pg 5)
We ranked number one for the third consecutive year in US mortgage-backed securities underwriting, secured the top spot in the securitization of adjustable-rate mortgages, and ranked in the top five in the global collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market … Our vertically integrated mortgage franchise allows us access to every step of the mortgage process, including origination, securitization, distribution and servicing.
(pg 11)
We take pride in our willingness and ability to break from the crowd to pursue new or alternate paths
(pg 13)
November 25th, 2008 at 1:27 am
The housing slump is largely contained and the market’s correction is mostly behind us.
(Hank Paulson 5/22/07)
source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aML31N98q1mQ&refer=home
November 25th, 2008 at 1:27 am
King Solomon=’The one who hates gifts shall live’
Jim Rogers- ‘Ben Bernanke is an idiot’ and ‘Bernanke’s gonna keep printing money ’til they run out of trees’
‘I screwed up,can I have some money’
November 25th, 2008 at 1:32 am
The men with the muckrakes are indispensible to the well-being of society , but only if they know when to stop raking the muck. -Teddy Roosevelt
The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, and love of sot living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. -Teddy Roosevelt
Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tryranny of wealth; the tyranny of plutocracy. Jon Pierpont Morgan
Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -Aesop
The market-place is a place set aside wher men may deceive and overreach each other. -Anacharsis ( Scythian Philosopher)
To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high. -Aristophanes (Athenian poet)
November 25th, 2008 at 1:42 am
“What, me worry?”, Alfred E. Neuman
November 25th, 2008 at 1:45 am
“There’s a fine line between stupid and clever.”
– Spinal Tap.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:48 am
to mangle a haiku saying -
The road to a successful bailout?-
Well, it’s plain and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but more
and more
and more.
Just for those who are interested in the original -
The road to wisdom?-
Well, it’s plain and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Per Auto Industry:
“Let’s just give Michigan to Canada.”
–anonymous whispers from the U.S. Congress
November 25th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Felix Salmon: “Nothing’s unthinkable in this market, not even the idea that you can tie two rocks together and hope that they float.”
Context:
“As John Carney notes today, Citigroup’s market capitalization is $21 billion; that of Goldman Sachs is $20 billion. Can anyone say “merger of equals”? Nothing’s unthinkable in this market, not even the idea that you can tie two rocks together and hope that they float.”
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/11/21/who-will-take-over-citi
November 25th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Warren Buffet got a phone call from a private investor. ” I’m calling about Bear Stearns, should I go on? Warren said he was thinking “It’s like a woman taking off half her clothes and asking “Should i continue?”. Even if you’re a 90 year old eunuch, you let em finish.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Looks like your gonna keep working on that book for awhile.
Housing industry wants a bailout… com’on i saw this one coming
November 25th, 2008 at 3:19 am
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2008/11/housing_industr.html
November 25th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Jim Rogers said that the plan by Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman, to “crank up the money-printing machines and run them until we run out of trees” .
February 28, 2008
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article3451136.ece
November 25th, 2008 at 4:09 am
“When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course, there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience I have never been in any accident of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. ”
E. J. Smith
Captain, RMS TITANIC
November 25th, 2008 at 4:11 am
“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
US (Canadian-born) administrator & economist (1908- )
November 25th, 2008 at 4:15 am
“History may not repeat itself. But it will definitely rhyme.”
Doug Case
November 25th, 2008 at 4:16 am
“This Time It’s Different” are among the most costly four words in market history. ”
John Templeton
March 1994
November 25th, 2008 at 4:16 am
“You cannot eat like an elephant and sh** like a bird…”
unknown
November 25th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Two from Thomas Jefferson –
“I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity… is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.”
November 25th, 2008 at 5:28 am
The Nevermind behind the Bailout, George W. Bush:
“It turns out that there’s a lot of interlinks throughout the financial system.
“The system had grown to a point where a lot of people were dependent upon each other, and that the collapse of one part of the system wouldn’t just affect a part of the financial markets; it would affect the average citizen — and how.
“Well, it affect their capacity to borrow money to buy a house or to finance a college loan.
“It affect the ability of a small business to get credit.
“In other words, the system risk was significant, and it required a significant response, and Congress understands that.
“And we’ll work to get something done as quickly and as big as possible.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080920-4.html
November 25th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Need a Greenspan quote…he said in 2005 “there is a chance that housing prices could fall, but its effect on the economy will be limited.”
November 25th, 2008 at 6:03 am
“Citigroup has been known to be in a somewhat weak condition,” – William A. Longbrake, board of directors of First Financial Northwest & adviser for financial lobbyists. According to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112401118_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008112403290&s_pos=
November 25th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Hi Barry,
In January, 2005 at a International FX Conference at the CME, I asked Diane Swonk from Mesirow Financial how economists could sleep at night with all of the cockamamie mortgage paper in the system, and if we were going to be invaded by drug lords to buy all the castles being built.
Her answer was,
“it will be a problem sometime, but right now it was adding liquidity to the system”.
Don’t forget that “liquidity to the system” quote to describe this mess.
It will be the battle cry for the next mess which is only a few years away.
Happy holidays,
Steve Misic
November 25th, 2008 at 6:20 am
To open the book:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”
– Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
===========================
For TARP:
” You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”
- George W. Bush — (spoken at a Washington Dinner, March 2001)
==========================
For Lehman:
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!! said the Queen of Hearts
- Alice in Wonderland
or alternatively:
Sometimes you’re a bug, sometimes you’re a windshield
– Anonymous
========================
For GM:
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One CAN’T believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice.” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for a half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
- Alice in Wonderland
=============================
For Citigroup:
It’s time to take the bull by the horns and look the situation in the eye!
- Anonymous
November 25th, 2008 at 6:37 am
The next will be big hedge funds. Will fed bailout a hedge fund?
November 25th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Texas, while questioning Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Sept 29th:
“In Texas we’d say the chickens have come home to roost. This isn’t the result of just bad luck. It’s the result of bankrupt ideology. In this case the vultures have come home to roost, and I think we need to look very critically at this giant bailout before we place all the burden on people who didn’t benefit from what went wrong here.”
Quote begins at the 6:37 point on this YouTube clip. A second good quote begins at the 6 min point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZfzYqtNrhg
November 25th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Damm, I got this one wrong above. What I meant to type was:
For Citigroup:
It’s time to take the bull by the TAIL and look the situation in the eye!
- Anonymous
November 25th, 2008 at 6:50 am
If you are a bank, and you and Hank Paulson are looking in a mirror, and Hank says You are the ugly one, well, you may really be ugly….
November 25th, 2008 at 6:50 am
This one is for the chapter on consumers who brought too much home and are looking for their bailout:
Reach for your dreams
“I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.”
-Milton Berle
November 25th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Anna Schwartz, interviewed by Brian Carney for WSJ: “If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset. “The particular asset varied from one boom to another. But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates that induced ordinary people to say, well, it’s so cheap to acquire whatever is the object of desire in an asset boom, and go ahead and acquire that object. And then of course if monetary policy tightens, the boom collapses.”
In 2002, Mr. Bernanke, then a Federal Reserve Board governor, said in a speech in honor of Mr. Friedman’s 90th birthday, “I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.” “This was [his] claim to be worthy of running the Fed,” she says. He was “familiar with history. He knew what had been done.” But perhaps this is actually Mr. Bernanke’s biggest problem. Today’s crisis isn’t a replay of the problem in the 1930s, but our central bankers have responded by using the tools they should have used then. They are fighting the last war. The result, she argues, has been failure. “I don’t see that they’ve achieved what they should have been trying to achieve. So my verdict on this present Fed leadership is that they have not really done their job.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122428279231046053.html#printMode
November 25th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Overall:
“Time is but a room; and a rope”.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Barry,
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools”
— Herbert Spencer,
November 25th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Barry, this one works for every company on your list but I like it for Lehman…
“Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold”
-William Butler Yeats
November 25th, 2008 at 7:39 am
And I do like this:
“We have 2 classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know… and those who don’t know they don’t know.”
– - -John Kenneth Galbraith
November 25th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Lehman surely has to be – “Smart risk management is never putting yourself in a position where you can’t live to fight another day,” says Mr Fuld.
http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11088839
November 25th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Only the little people have moral hazards.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:00 am
“After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. At Berkshire, we retain our risks and depend on no one. And whatever the world’s problems, our checks will clear.”
Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders 2001
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2001ar/2001letter.html
And probably any tagline used by financial institutions in their advertisements will do, e.g.
-”Fortis: Getting you There”
-”UBS: You and US”
-”Citi never Sleeps”
November 25th, 2008 at 9:07 am
“We aren’t doing this for the money….We’re doing this for a shitload of money!”
Lonestar to Barf: Spaceballs
November 25th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Who said, “Smart people do dumb things, and groups of smart people do dumber things because they think they’ve got to do something”?
November 25th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Willie Sutton acquired two nicknames, “The Actor” and “Slick Willie,” for his ingenuity in executing robberies in various disguises. Fond of expensive clothes, Sutton was described as being an immaculate dresser. Although he was a bank robber, Sutton had the reputation of a gentleman; in fact, people present at his robberies stated he was quite polite. One victim said witnessing one of Sutton’s robberies was like being at the movies, except the usher had a gun.
When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton simply replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”
- Willie Sutton, Bank Robber
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/sutton/sutton.htm
November 25th, 2008 at 9:32 am
“A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory” – Arthur Golden
Regarding Mr. Fuld at Lehman…I don’t/didn’t get the impression he was concerned about the magnitude of the downside of his actions/inactions (ie. not selling the firm).
It’s not the way Mr. Golden intended the quote, but it appears to me that Mr. Fuld took it to the extreme.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:42 am
It’s great to have all these quotes from the modern financial and economical luminaries, but I think to have one of a classical origin is a must. Not sure which chapter to use it in though:
“Errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum”
“It is human to err, but to persist is of the Devil”
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
November 25th, 2008 at 9:55 am
“We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poorhouse in an automobile”
Will Rogers
November 25th, 2008 at 9:55 am
For the Lehman chapter, it ought to be some quote from David Einhorn.
Maybe not ‘pithy’ enough, but this one is a beaut in my book:
“For the capital markets to function, companies need to provide investors with accurate
information rather than whatever numbers add up to a smooth return. If there is no penalty
for misbehavior – and, in fact, such behavior is rewarded with flattering stories in the
mainstream press about how to handle a crisis – we will all bear the negative consequences
over time.”
- David Einhorn (at the Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference, 5.21.08)
http://www.tilsonfunds.com/EinhornIraSohn08.pdf
November 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
-Thos. Jefferson (letter to Tom Logan, Nov. 1816)
November 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Milton Friedman
November 25th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I love the Bush statement: “This sucker can go down!”
November 25th, 2008 at 10:43 am
“The beatings will continue until morale improves” – Unknown
November 25th, 2008 at 10:47 am
“In the long run we are all dead.”
-John Maynard Keynes
November 25th, 2008 at 10:55 am
This isn’t pithy, or even about finance specifically, but is relevant to these times:
“Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”
From a commencement address given by David Foster Wallace in 2005 at Kenyon College. It was reprinted in its entirety in the Wall Street Journal the week after Wallace died (Sept, 2008), apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I hope no one listed this gem yet…
From Neel Kashkari’s congressional testimony:
“I don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayer money to put taxpayer capital into a financial institution that’s going to fail.”
November 25th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
TARP
“extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional powers.”
-Chief Justice Charles Hughes, Majority Opinion, Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 1935
November 25th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
The best quotes out west are from the weathered old time cowboys who can convey paragraphs with the shake of a head or the rise of a brow…famous for one line quotes that simplify life’s problems to one word or sentence is all they need. What’s left unsaid is what makes them so funny to me. One of my favorites is “YOU COULDN’T POUR PISS OUT OF A BOOT”. Not that you could put that in a book.
CURMUDGEON- That is a great piece you posted. Never heard of David Foster Wallace…I’ll have to look up the rest of the address. It is something that people either get or don’t get….and really it is the foundation of all the problems in this country and on this Earth. It always amazes me when people worship their possessions and the possessions end up running their life instead of the other way around. ( Not that I haven’t been there before.)
November 25th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
George Bush’s deficits: 5 trillion dollars;
Wall Street’s bailouts: 4.6 trillion dollars;
Economic bailouts and stimulus packages: 1.5 trillion dollars;
Shattered economy with Benjamins used as toilet paper: Priceless!
November 25th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
This Jimmy Cayne quote, from a 3/28/03 NY Times article, might be nice for your Bear Stearns chapter.
”I’ll tell you what worries me,” he said, ”that we might be doing something stupid.”
Best of luck with the book!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E6D81F30F93BA15750C0A9659C8B63
November 25th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Jim Cramer : Don’t Sell Bear Stearns!
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2b7_1205751955
Mar 17 08
November 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I wouldn’t believe in anything a suicidal, manic-depressive spouts.
David Foster Wallace may have been cool to the literati, but I could barely get thru page 10 of , “Infinite Jest”, before putting it in Amazon used books for sale, and his essays are hopeless.
His philosophy reads like that of every other idealist resulting in– because of a chemical imbalance in his brain–taking his own life. This is not someone I would look to for inspiration or guidance.
It’s better to recognize early on that we are animals with prehensile tails, barely out of the jungles and the seas, seething with primal urges and instincts upon which we attempt, most of the time unsuccessfully, to apply a modicum of reasoning (in itself, not yet considered a step forward since beetles, cockroaches, alligators, whales and elephants and other mammmals, marsupials, and sharks live far longer than we could ever hope to).
“I think, therefore, I mostly screw up”.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
“I’ve got a family to feed”
Latrell Spreewell (after turning down a 3 yr, $21 M contract extension in Oct 2004)
—————————————–
From No Country for Old Men
Wendell: “It’s a mess, ain’t it, sheriff?”
Ed Tom Bell: “If it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here.”
November 25th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
For chapter 7 (Lehman) -
Brother, Can You Spare a Billion Dimes
A variation of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwZg_4F91R0
November 25th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
flipspiceland,
I don’t look to Wallace for inspiration. I think instead his speech was just a succinctly correct observation of how we humans behave. There are no atheists. We all believe in something. From the moment we realized, unlike the rest of the animate world (beetles, cockroaches, etc., as you say), that we exist and therefore won’t one day, we have struggled to reason why we should continue at the moment to do so. We are the only living creature that can decide not to exist.
Wallace lost his battle for meaning. That doesn’t mean his observations were incorrect.
Here’s a link, if you want to read the whole article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html
November 25th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
“You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell! – George Taylor (Charlton Heston) Planet of the Apes. Would be a great visual of course with the wrecked Statue of Liberty in the background.
“It’s a TARP!”… Admiral Ackbar – Star Wars
“Mission Accomplished” – GWB, et al
Use that cartoon you ran a few weeks ago – the banker who says “I’m all right. I landed on a Taxpayer”.
SGIP
November 25th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
One last one…this time pithy, and immediately relevant:
“What a Government spends the public pay for. There is no such thing as an uncovered deficit.”
John Maynard Keynes
November 25th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
For #7 Lehman brothers
“Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.”
- Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program on June 6, 1930
November 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I’d recommend using this quote for any part of the book, since economic foolishness got us into this morass and economic foolishness seems to be the Paulson/Bernake prescription for getting us out. Throw someone else’s money at the problem, without rules, requirements or limits…
John Dryden, English poet and dramatist (1631 – 1700) wrote in the “Spanish Friar” (act II, sc. 1)
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
This quote is misattributed to Benjamin Franklin and to Albert Einstein among others…
November 25th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
“Once in the dear dead days beyond recall, an out-of-town visitor was being shown the wonders of the New York financial district. When the party arrived at the Battery, one of his guides indicated some handsome ships riding at anchor. “Look, those are the bankers’ and brokers’ yachts. ‘Where are all the customers’ yachts?’ asked the naïve visitor.” Fred Schwed
November 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
This one’s a bit dated, but still apropos:
“Bank failures are caused by depositors who don’t deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement.” Vice-President Dan Quayle, 1988
I think it nicely encapsulates the logic of the inside-the-beltway crowd.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
a TRILLION here and a TRILLION there and pretty soon it adds up to real default.
-me
November 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
3 From the Big Stick himself, Theodore Roosevelt, the only president ever to knife fight a cougar to death:
“We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.”
Letter to Sir Edward Gray, November 15, 1913
“This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.”
Memphis, TN, October 25, 1905
“There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.”
Pasadena, CA, May 8, 1903
November 25th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I would recommend using an editorial cartoon per heading instead, that can work really well. Even use some old ones from the 30’s.
My favorite money quote, from “The Jerk” as Bernadette Peters is leaving Steve Martin because he lost his fortune.. He’s like, ‘did you only love me for my money?’. And she says:
“I don’t care about losing all the money. It’s losing all the stuff.”
November 25th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Re: Bear Stearns
“If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.”—J. Paul Getty
~~~
BR: This one was in the intro 6 months ago! It is a true classic
November 25th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
ok, just because the jerk was funny, another one. This could apply to all the bonus payouts as the titans tanked:
Navin R. Johnson: Well I’m gonna to go then. And I don’t need any of this. I don’t need this stuff, and I don’t need you. I don’t need anything except this.
[picks up an ashtray]
Navin R. Johnson: And that’s it and that’s the only thing I need, is this. I don’t need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that’s all I need. And that’s all I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one – I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that’s all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.
[walking outside]
Navin R. Johnson: And I don’t need one other thing, except my dog.
[dog barks]
Navin R. Johnson: I don’t need my dog.
November 25th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Paulson’s quote on Lehman Brothers – ‘never once’
While briefing reporters at the White House, Paulson said he “never once” considered that it was appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers, the fourth-biggest investment bank in the United States.
http://english.cri.cn/3130/2008/09/16/1722s405734.htm
November 25th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
“They’re taking the assets away from the competent people, giving them to the incompetent people and saying to the incompetent: ‘OK, now you can compete with the competent people, with their money.’ I mean, this is terrible economics. This is outrageous economics,” Rogers told the FT.
Jim Rogers
“Congress is continually appointing fact-finding committees, when what we really need are some fact-facing committees.”
-Roger Allen
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
-Anonymous
“Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.”
-Anonymous
“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”
-Marcus Aurelius
“As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.”
-Josh Billings
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
-Henry Ford
“Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.”
-Henry Ford
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
-Benjamin Franklin
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
-Benjamin Franklin
“Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.”
-Benjamin Franklin
“We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex–but Congress can.”
-Cullen Hightower
“You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out.”
-Andrew Jackson stated in reference to the bankers at the state of his administration
“Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.”
-Ludwig von Mises
“The scariest words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’”.
-Ronal Reagan
“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
“A wealth creation that is purely based on inflating real estate prices and stock prices, isn’t going to work in the long run.”
-Bresciani-Turroni, The Economics of Inflation
“The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself.”
-James Wolcott
November 25th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
From Animal House: Wormer as Paulson, Flounder as any number of financiers.
Dean Vernon Wormer: There’s a little-known codicil in the Faber charter, granting the Dean unlimited powers in times of campus emergency… Put Neidermeyer onto it. He’s a sneaky little shit just like you.
Otter: Flounder, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fucked up – you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it! Maybe we can help.
Flounder: [crying] That’s easy for you to say! What am I going to tell Fred?
Otter: I’ll tell you what. We’ll tell Fred you were doing a great job taking care of his car, but you parked it out back last night and in the morning, it was gone. We report it to the police, D-Day takes care of the wreck, the insurance company buys your brother a new car.
Flounder: Will that work?
Otter: Hey, it’s gotta work better than the truth.
Bluto: [thrusting six-pack into Flounder's hands] My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.
November 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Just for fun, here’s one regarding George W. Bush:
“Makes facts based on decisions.” –Stephen Colbert
November 25th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I also think this applies…
If you, the taxpayer, are in a poker game with Hank and Ben and George and the whole gang, and you have been told there is a sucker in the game. And you look around and you don’t see him….well, chances are it is you know who…
November 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Surprised no one has offered up this one yet.
For all bailed out financial institutions to the U.S. taxpayer:
“I drink your milkshake!
- Daniel Day Lewis in the movie There Will Be Blood
November 25th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Four more (3 of which are Ayn Rand):
“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?”
– Ayn Rand
“Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off” — Ayn Rand
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force” –Ayn Rand
“Power does not corrupt man; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power”
– George Bernard Shaw
November 25th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
For the Lehman Bankruptcy:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
– Thomas Jefferson
November 25th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
BR,
I know that each additional page, in Print, makes the Book’s production costs go higher..
that said, a couple of pages of Quotes, like those above, could be cool as an addendum, as well..
also, foot-/end-notes+Bibliography, are, to me, muy importante..
and, depending on the volume of material that may excised in the Editorial process, a CD, in the Jacket, may be a useful addition..and/or a webpage, especially filled with relevant links for further reading(this can also leverage the Imprint’s Book List, if applicable)–which may be less expensive (webpage v. CD)..
though, as others have already alluded to, looks like this Thesis will have legs–vol.2, Trilogy, and similiar..
November 25th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Genesis 41 – King James Bible – author God, his minions, or a just an ancient dude, depending upon your religion
“There came up out of the river seven well favored kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favored and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favored and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favored and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke.”
November 25th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. -Unknown, but I say it all the time.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
“Until the day they put me in the ground, I will wonder.”
Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lehman Brothers Holdings during October 6, 2008 Congressional Hearings on why Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail and AIG was bailed out.
The Preliminary Transcript can be obtained from:
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20081010150253.pdf (a 16MB file)
See page 186-187.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
-Mark Twain
November 25th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Two favorites:
“Credit, like a looking-glass
Broken once, is gone, alas!”
Author unidentified.
“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible.”
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.
I have collected these and other maxims on debt and credit at http://pictorial-guide-to-crisis.blogspot.com/2008/10/maxims-on-debt-and-credit_17.html
November 26th, 2008 at 12:15 am
For Bear Stearns:
“Mr. Greenberg, if you study bridge the rest of your life, if you play with the best partners and you achieve your potential, you will never play bridge like I play bridge.”
Jimmy Cayne to Alan (Ace) Greenberg during Cayne’s interview in 1969 and as quoted in Fortune article The Rise and Fall of Jimmy Cayne (by William D. Cohan, Pg. 92-104, August 18, 2008)
November 26th, 2008 at 2:27 am
My personal favourite is:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels
But you can also choose from any of these”
1.Bear Stearns
2. Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac
3. AIG
“The first law of holes: When you’re in a hole, you have to stop digging” Benjamin Franklin
4. Detroit / GM loans
“Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty. ” Henry Ford
5. Home Owners Assistance
“A government can allow itself one year of spending above its means. Same for a household. But you and I both know that making it a habit leads straight to the soup kitchens” Franklin Roosevelt
6. TARP
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.” Groucho Marx
7. Lehman Brothers (the non bailout)
“A good banker, unfortunately, is not someone who anticipates danger and avoids it. He is rather a person who ruins himself and all his colleagues in an orthodox and conventional way, by not admitting that he is at fault” John Maynard Keynes
8. Citigroup ($25 + 20 + 306 billion)
9. Whoever is next
“Every time I make a bad decision, I carry on and make another” Harry S Truman
10. Whoever I forgot
November 26th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Re Fannie & Freddie:
Rep. Barnie Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.
And:
Rep. Frank: I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety and unsoundness than, in fact, exists.
November 26th, 2008 at 4:51 am
1. Bear Stearns “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.” Benjamin Franklin
2. Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac “No evil is without its compensation.” Seneca
3. AIG “Gentleman-rankers out on the spree, damned from here to Eternity.” Rudyard Kipling
4. Detroit / GM loans
Quotes from Henry Ford (http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs/559/Henry-Ford-Quotes.html).
We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.
There is no such thing as no chance. Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.
A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.
You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.
This quote is attributed to Henry Ford II
Never complain. Never explain.
5. Home Owners Assistance “I can’t define pornography, but I know it when I see it.? US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
6. TARP “I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” Ray Bradbury
7. Lehman Brothers (the non bailout) “I can’t believe that God plays dice with the universe.” Albert Einstein
8. Citigroup ($25 + 20 + 306 billion) ”There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.” Mother Teresa
9. Whoever is next “It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it’s one damn thing over and over.” Edna St. Vincent Millay
10. Whoever I forgot “He who hesitates is a damned fool.” Mae West
November 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
“Stop being such a jerk.” Jamie Dimon to Vikram Pandit on the JPM/Bear conference call.
November 26th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
To the lot:
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany. We must be cautious.
November 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Don’t know who said this about the bailouts, but thought it was great:
“They are using the lifeboats to save the rats!”
November 29th, 2008 at 10:40 am
“If a random bolt of lightning hits you when you’re standing in the middle of the field–that feels like a random event. But if your business is to stand in random fields during lightning storms, then you should anticipate, perhaps a little more robustly, the risks you’re taking on.”
–Peter Fisher speaking about LTCM on Nova’s Trillion Dollar Bet.
Perhaps my favorite quote of all time and and applicable to several chapters.
November 30th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Henry Ford said on February 11, 1934: “Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again.”
I think this quote nicely captures at least some of the sentiments that we’re struggling with today: real repercussions, accountability, and the notion that it is our capacity as Americans to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps that makes us great as individuals and as a country.
Note, there is some disagreement on the exact quote. This is the source that I took the quote from: http://www.iamfrankstallone.com/?p=56
December 1st, 2008 at 9:36 am
For Whom the Bailout Tolls. It tolls for thee, American taxpayer.
CITI invests $10 billion is Spanish toll roads after getting $45 billion cash and a bad loan guarantee that could cost taxpayers another $250 billion and a week later they have $10 billion available for Spanish toll roads.
We get the government we deserve.