Financially Unstable Quotes

The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version. All financial innovation involves in one form or another, the creation of debt secured in greater or lesser adequacy by real assets.

A central tenet of the traditional command-and-control mentality is management by the numbers; this is the basis and means for decision making. The numbers are largely financial and activity-related (what people do), which may or may not be of value to understanding and improving the system. With a proclaimed interest in ‘shareholder value,’ senior managers sit astride a system that they make more unstable and suboptimal through financial interference. Almost without thinking about it, the purpose of the organization becomes ‘make the budget.’ As

possibility is that the crisis happened partly because the economic models of the mainstream rendered that outcome ostensibly so unlikely in theory that they ended up making it far more likely in practice. The insouciance encouraged by the rational-expectations and efficient-market hypotheses made regulators and investors careless. As Minsky argued, stability destabilizes. This is an aspect of what George Soros, the successful speculator and innovative economic thinker, calls ‘reflexivity’: the way human beings think determines the reality in which they live.5 Naive economics helps cause unstable economies. Meanwhile,

Continetti concludes: "An intellectual, financial, technological, and social infrastructure to undermine global capitalism has been developing for more than two decades, and we are in the middle of its latest manifestation… The occupiers’ tent cities are self-governing, communal, egalitarian, and networked. They reject everyday politics. They foster bohemianism and confrontation with the civil authorities. They are the Phalanx and New Harmony, updated for postmodern times and plopped in the middle of our cities. There may not be that many activists in the camps. They may appear silly, even grotesque. They may resist "agendas" and "policies." They may not agree on what they want or when they want it. And they may disappear as winter arrives and the liberals whose parks they are occupying lose patience with them. But the utopians and anarchists will reappear… The occupation will persist as long as individuals believe that inequalities of property are unjust and that the brotherhood of man can be established on earth." You can see why anarchists might find this sort of thing refreshingly honest. The author makes no secret of his desire to see us all in prison, but at least he’s willing to make an honest assessment of what the stakes are. Still, there is one screamingly dishonest theme that runs throughout the Weekly Standard piece: the intentional conflation of "democracy" with "everyday politics," that is, lobbying, fund-raising, working for electoral campaigns, and otherwise participating in the current American political system. The premise is that the author stands in favor of democracy, and that occupiers, in rejecting the existing system, are against it. In fact, the conservative tradition that produced and sustains journals like The Weekly Stand is profoundly antidemocratic. Its heroes, from Plato to Edmund Burke, are, almost uniformly, men who opposed democracy on principle, and its readers are still fond of statements like "America is not a democracy, it’s a republic." What’s more, the sort of arguments Continetti breaks out here--that anarchist-inspire movements are unstable, confused, threaten established orders of property, and must necessarily lead to violence--are precisely the arguments that have, for centuries. been leveled by conservatives against democracy itself. In reality, OWS is anarchist-inspired, but for precisely that reason it stands squarely in the very tradition of American popular democracy that conservatives like Continetti have always staunchly opposed. Anarchism does not mean the negation of democracy--or at least, any of the aspects of democracy that most American have historically liked. Rather, anarchism is a matter of taking those core democratic principles to their logical conclusions. The reason it’s difficult to see this is because the word "democracy" has had such an endlessly contested history: so much so that most American pundits and politicians, for instance, now use the term to refer to a form of government established with the explicit purpose of ensuring what John Adams once called "the horrors of democracy" would never come about. (p. 153-154)

We must also restore the understanding achieved by Keynes and Minsky, and under the New Deal, of unstable speculation and financial fraud, later effaced by the doctrine of efficient markets. A new economics must rest on a biophysical and institutional framework, recognizing that fixed capital and embedded technology are essential for efficient productive operations, but that resource costs can render any fixed system fragile, and that corruption can destroy any human institution.

Morgan retaliated with a strategy that would become one of his hallmarks. He spread rumors to Wall Street that Westinghouse’s company was financially unstable, which dissuaded investors from giving Westinghouse the capital that he needed to expand the production and installation of his alternating current generators. Morgan then began an attack through stock manipulation, and moved to gain control of The Westinghouse Corporation, and thus Tesla’s patents.

Morgan retaliated with a strategy that would become one of his hallmarks. He spread rumors to Wall Street that Westinghouse’s company was financially unstable, which dissuaded investors from giving Westinghouse the capital that he needed to expand the production and installation of his alternating current generators. Morgan then began an attack through stock manipulation, and moved to gain control of The Westinghouse Corporation, and thus Tesla’s patents. By the end of 1897, Westinghouse was nearly bankrupt, and it looked as though Morgan would usurp everything that Tesla and Westinghouse had built together. Westinghouse owed Tesla over $1 million in royalties, an amount that grew daily. When Westinghouse described to Tesla the desperate situation, Tesla replied with the following: “Mr. Westinghouse, you have been my friend, you believed in me when others had no faith; you were brave enough to go ahead when others lacked courage; you supported me when even your own engineers lacked vision. ... Here is your contract, and here is my contract. I will tear them both to pieces, and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties.” In time, these royalties would’ve made Tesla the world’s first billionaire. Instead, they enabled Westinghouse to save his company. Tesla’s selflessness was a testament not only to his generosity and goodwill, but his belief in his ability to continue to create his future.

Life expectancy rose only modestly between the Neolithic era of 8500 to 3500 BC and the Victorian era of 1850 to 1900.13 An American born in the late nineteenth century had an average life expectancy of around forty-five years, with a large share never making it past their first birthdays.14 Then something remarkable happened. In countries on the frontier of economic development, human health began to improve rapidly, education levels shot up, and standards of living began to grow and grow. Within a century, life expectancies had increased by two-thirds, average years of schooling had gone from single to double digits, and the productivity of workers and the pay they took home had doubled and doubled and then doubled again. With the United States leading the way, the rich world crossed a Great Divide—a divide separating centuries of slow growth, poor health, and anemic technical progress from one of hitherto undreamed-of material comfort and seemingly limitless economic potential. For the first time, rich countries experienced economic development that was both broad and deep, reaching all major segments of society and producing not just greater material comfort but also fundamental transformations in the health and life horizons of those it touched. As the French economist Thomas Piketty points out in his magisterial study of inequality, “It was not until the twentieth century that economic growth became a tangible, unmistakable reality for everyone.”15 The mixed economy was at the heart of this success—in the United States no less than in other Western nations. Capitalism played an essential role. But capitalism was not the new entrant on the economic stage. Effective governance was. Public health measures made cities engines of innovation rather than incubators of illness.16 The meteoric expansion of public education increased not only individual opportunity but also the economic potential of entire societies. Investments in science, higher education, and defense spearheaded breakthroughs in medicine, transportation, infrastructure, and technology. Overarching rules and institutions tamed and transformed unstable financial markets and turned boom-bust cycles into more manageable ups and downs. Protections against excessive insecurity and abject destitution encouraged the forward-looking investments and social integration that sustained growth required. At every level of society, the gains in health, education, income, and capacity were breathtaking. The mixed economy was a spectacularly positive-sum bargain: It redistributed power and resources, but as its impacts broadened and diffused, virtually everyone was made massively better off.

First, perhaps because of uncertain property rights, noncredible legal systems, and unstable financial and political systems, they do not generate enough domestic savings to fund investment. Second, for many of the same reasons, the private sector fails consistently to direct investment into productive projects. Gerschenkron’s

The chief executive officer today is an essentially political position, which requires men and women to assume public postures that often conflict with their true personalities. Many corporate executives who confront this tension become infected with hubris, as this man did. Like him, they come to believe they can overcome any skepticism and dig out of any financial hole, no matter how deep. Given the complexity of accounting, they, and their employees, manage reported earnings in a way that diverges from reality. Securities analysts and journalists entice them to repeat optimism so frequently that they come to believe it, just as he did. Some corporate officers become mentally unstable as the pressure mounts, especially at times of calamity. Many have unhappy endings.

Erratic work makes us feel unstable, both emotionally and financially. We thrive when we know what is expected of us, when we know which goal post we're trying to hit. Chasing work or sorting out just what it is we are supposed to be doing in a role demands our energy in a way that is frenetic and often seems unsafe, both of which are a recipe for fatigue and burnout.

A woman will follow you to the end of the world as long as she can trust you enough to lead her the right way. No woman will submit to a man who doesn’t have a sense of direction on his own. Doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life and is unstable. Not just financially but mentally as well. Keep her happy son, and that goes for all of you.

but additional decrees had to be issued prescribing grace periods and exchange rates for settling debts contracted prior to decree no. 129 in other currencies. The complexity of the currency system made it unintelligible to the majority of the population. With multiple, unstable exchange rates and market unit pricing, merchants were no longer able to properly assess their financial standing based on registered prices. It took more than ordinary bookkeeping skills to keep proper tabs on costs, revenue, and net profit.

general sentiment may be true: buying things is not where you should turn for contentment. But at its core, the statement is false. It’s meant to keep you powerless, unpaid, overworked, and financially unstable. Anxiety regarding money-related issues has been at or near the top of the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America survey every year since it began in 2007.

I heard this story of someone who does this in MLM. If he's talking to someone who is “cold”, he never, EVER starts by saying he's in “MLM” or network marketing. Instead, he talks about how unstable the economy and job market is. Then he discusses how pensions and government programs are unreliable and bankrupt. Next he suggests real financial security comes only from having a business. And if you lack experience, a franchise is ideal, since they usually offer support and a proven “paint by numbers” system. But franchises cost money and take time. So the next best thing is MLM—which can be done cheaply part time. And since most new MLM company's fail, it's best to join one that's been around a while, like his... See how that works?

Although I believe, like Bagehot, that central banks are inherently destabilising, that doesn’t mean that you cannot have financial and economic instability without a central bank. Decentralised monetary systems, if poorly regulated, can also be unstable;

The risk models developed by private firms, whether hedge funds, rating agencies, or banks, are not reliable guides to the future. Even when these models are applied by government regulators, their application is flawed, because they look to past market history as received truth. But markets, we must emphasize, are imperfect; they are the agglomeration of myriad investors, most of whom usually act rationally - usually, as history has shown, but not always. Even perfectly logical investors will panic, as will theatergoers at the mere possibility of fire, so as not to be last to the exit; this threat of contagion renders financial markets inherently unstable.