Wall Street Wolf Quotes

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Act as if! Act as if you're a wealthy man, rich already, and then you'll surely become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence and then people will surely have confidence in you. Act as if you have unmatched experience and then people will follow your advice. And act as if you are already a tremendous success, and as sure as I stand here today - you will become successful.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
Without action, the best intentions in the world are nothing more than that: intentions.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
There’s no nobility in poverty.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
You don’t choose who you fall in love with, do you? And once you do fall in love—that obsessive sort of love, that all-consuming love, where two people can’t stand to be apart from each other for even a moment—how are you supposed to let a love like that pass you by?
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
I want you to back yourself into a corner. Give yourself no choice but to succeed. Let the consequences of failure become so dire and so unthinkable that you’ll have no choice but to do whatever it takes to succeed.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
The easiest way to make money is -create something of such value that everybody wants and go out and give and create value, the money comes automatically.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
If you want to be rich, never give up. People tend to give up. If you have persistence, you will come out ahead of most people. More importantly, you will learn. When you do something, you might fail. But that’s not because you’re a failure. It’s because you have not learnt enough. Do it differently each time. One day, you will do it right. Failure is your friend.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
They were drunk on youth, fueled by greed, and higher than kites.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
And my wife…well, I guess she’d earned her scene with me, but still; did she really have that much reason to be angry? I mean, when she married me she knew what she was getting into, didn’t she? She had been my mistress, for Chrissake! That spoke volumes, didn’t it”?
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
The tragic hero usurps the function of the gods and attempts to remake the world.
Helen Gardner
And from the time I was a kid, I've had this internal monologue roaring through my head, which doesn't stop - unless I'm asleep. I'm sure every person has this; it's just that my monologue is particularly loud. And particularly troublesome. I'm constantly asking myself questions. And the problem with that is that your brain is like a computer: If you ask a question, it's programmed to respond, whether there's an answer or not. I'm constantly weighing everything in my mind and trying to predict how my actions will influence events. Or maybe manipulate events are the more appropriate words. It's like playing a game of chess with your own life. And I hate fucking chess!
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
If I earn a million dollars a week and the average American earns a thousand dollars a week, then when I spend twenty thousand dollars on something it’s the equivalent of the average American spending twenty dollars on something, right?
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
inside the restaurant young Strattonites carried on their time-honored tradition of acting like packs of untamed wolves.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Victor was Chinese by birth and Jewish by injection, having been raised amid the most savage young Jews anywhere on Long Island: the towns of Jericho and Syosset.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar.
Tom Wolfe (The Bonfire of the Vanities)
I had considered changing my phone number, but I was so far behind on my phone bill that NYNEX was after me too.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
We are wolves, which are wild dogs, and this is our place in the city. We are small and our house is small on our small urban street. We can see the city and the train line and it's beautiful in its own dangerous way. Dangerous because it's shared and taken and fought for. That's the best way I can put it, and thinking about it, when I walk past the tiny houses on our street, I wonder about the stories inside them. I wonder hard, because houses must have walls and rooftops for a reason. My only query is the windows. Why do they have windows? Is it to let a glimpse of the world in? Or for us to see out?
Markus Zusak (Fighting Ruben Wolfe (Wolfe Brothers, #2))
Act as if! Act as if you're a wealthy man, rich already, and then you'll surely become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence and then people will surely have confidence in you. Act as if you have unmatched experience and then people will follow your advice. And act as if you are already a tremendous success, and as sure as I stand here today - you will become successful.” ― Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street
Jordan Belfort
[Aunt] Patricia smiled, and we walked in silence for a while. But it wasn't a poisonous silence. It was the sort of silence shared by two people who're comfortable enough not to force a conversation ahead of its logical progression. I found this woman's company to be incredibly soothing.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
But what I sincerely hope is that my life serves as a cautionary tale to the rich and poor alike; to anyone who’s living with a spoon up their nose and a bunch of pills dissolving in their stomach sac; or to any person who’s considering taking a God-given gift and misusing it; to anyone who decides to go to the dark side of the force and live a life of unbridled hedonism. And to anyone who thinks there’s anything glamorous about being known as a Wolf of Wall Street. BOOK I
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
در فقر هیچ شرافتی وجود نداره
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
People don’t buy stock; it gets sold to them. Don’t ever forget that.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Everyone does this shit.’” I paused, letting Elliot's words hang in the air. Then I said, “There's no denying that he had a point. You see it in jewelry stores all the time: They inflate their price tags and then mark things down right in front of you so you think you're getting a good deal.” I paused again, then: “And all this business about an overorder isn't much different than all those stores you see advertising ‘ going-out-of-business sales.’ Most of them have been advertising the same going-out-of-business sale for the last ten years, and in ten more years they'll still be going out of business!
Jordan Belfort (Catching the Wolf of Wall Street: More Incredible True Stories of Fortunes, Schemes, Parties, and Prison)
I don’t think you’re cut out for this job. You look like a kid, and Wall Street’s no place for kids. It’s a place for killers. A place for mercenaries. So in that sense you’re lucky I’m not the one who does the hiring around here.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
Because I questioned myself and my sanity and what I was doing wrong in this situation. Because of course I feared that I might be overreacting, overemotional, oversensitive, weak, playing victim, crying wolf, blowing things out of proportion, making things up. Because generations of women have heard that they’re irrational, melodramatic, neurotic, hysterical, hormonal, psycho, fragile, and bossy. Because girls are coached out of the womb to be nonconfrontational, solicitous, deferential, demure, nurturing, to be tuned in to others, and to shrink and shut up. Because speaking up for myself was not how I learned English. Because I’m fluent in Apology, in Question Mark, in Giggle, in Bowing Down, in Self-Sacrifice. Because slightly more than half of the population is regularly told that what happens doesn’t or that it isn’t the big deal we’re making it into. Because your mothers, sisters, and daughters are routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied, harassed, threatened, punished, propositioned, and groped, and challenged on what they say. Because when a woman challenges a man, then the facts are automatically in dispute, as is the speaker, and the speaker’s license to speak. Because as women we are told to view and value ourselves in terms of how men view and value us, which is to say, for our sexuality and agreeability. Because it was drilled in until it turned subconscious and became unbearable need: don’t make it about you; put yourself second or last; disregard your feelings but not another’s; disbelieve your perceptions whenever the opportunity presents itself; run and rerun everything by yourself before verbalizing it—put it in perspective, interrogate it: Do you sound nuts? Does this make you look bad? Are you holding his interest? Are you being considerate? Fair? Sweet? Because stifling trauma is just good manners. Because when others serially talk down to you, assume authority over you, try to talk you out of your own feelings and tell you who you are; when you’re not taken seriously or listened to in countless daily interactions—then you may learn to accept it, to expect it, to agree with the critics and the haters and the beloveds, and to sign off on it with total silence. Because they’re coming from a good place. Because everywhere from late-night TV talk shows to thought-leading periodicals to Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Congress and the current administration, women are drastically underrepresented or absent, missing from the popular imagination and public heart. Because although I questioned myself, I didn’t question who controls the narrative, the show, the engineering, or the fantasy, nor to whom it’s catered. Because to mention certain things, like “patriarchy,” is to be dubbed a “feminazi,” which discourages its mention, and whatever goes unmentioned gets a pass, a pass that condones what it isn’t nice to mention, lest we come off as reactionary or shrill.
Roxane Gay (Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture)
The three of us exchanged glances but said nothing. After all, what was there to say? The truth was that hookers did take credit cards—or at least ours did! In fact, hookers were so much a part of the Stratton subculture that we classified them like publicly traded stocks: Blue Chips were considered the top-of-the-line hooker, zee crème de la crème. They were usually struggling young models or exceptionally beautiful college girls in desperate need of tuition or designer clothing, and for a few thousand dollars they would do almost anything imaginable, either to you or to each other. Next came the NASDAQs, who were one step down from the Blue Chips. They were priced between three and five hundred dollars and made you wear a condom unless you gave them a hefty tip, which I always did. Then came the Pink Sheet hookers, who were the lowest form of all, usually a streetwalker or the sort of low-class hooker who showed up in response to a desperate late-night phone call to a number in Screw magazine or the yellow pages. They usually cost a hundred dollars or less, and if you didn’t wear a condom, you’d get a penicillin shot the next day and then pray that your dick didn’t fall off. Anyway, the Blue Chips took credit cards, so what was wrong with writing them off on your taxes? After all, the IRS knew about this sort of stuff, didn’t they? In fact, back in the good old days, when getting blasted over lunch was considered normal corporate behavior, the IRS referred to these types of expenses as three-martini lunches! They even had an accounting term for it: It was called T and E, which stood for Travel and Entertainment. All I’d done was taken the small liberty of moving things to their logical conclusion, changing T and E to T and A: Tits and Ass!
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
But what was wrong with that? They were drunk on youth, fueled by greed, and higher than kites.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
she is the Eat, Pray, Love to my Wolf on Wall Street.
A. Zavarelli (Tap Left)
contrary to previous assumptions, young men and women who possess the collective social graces of a herd of sex-crazed water buffalo and have an intelligence quotient in the range of Forrest Gump on three hits of acid, can be taught to sound like Wall Street wizards, as long as you write every last word down for them and then keep drilling it into their heads again and again—every day, twice a day—for a year straight.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Listen, guys, fucking around with midgets ain’t no joke. Pound for pound they’re stronger than grizzly bears, and, if you want to know the truth, they happen to scare the living shit out of me. So before I approve this midget-tossing business, you need to find me a game warden who can rein in the little critter if he should go off the deep end. Then we’re gonna need some tranq darts, a pair a handcuffs, a can of Mace—” Wigwam
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
(Note from me: Scarlet is talking to this huge street fighter named Wolf who wants to help her on her farm, but she said no.) Wolf shifted toward the wall as she started the engine. "If you change your mind about needing a hand, I can be found at the abandoned Morel house most nights. I may not be great with people, but I'd do well on a farm." Amusement touched the corners of his lips. "Animals love me." "Oh, I'm she they do," Scarlet said, beaming with fake encouragement. She shut the door before muttering, "What farm animals don't love a wild?
Marissa Meyer (Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles, #2))
I laughed right along with her, but inside I was dying. There were certain things that you just didn’t joke about; it was simply bad luck. It was like pissing in the fate god’s eye. If you did it long enough, he was certain to piss right back at you. And his urine stream was like a fucking fire hose. But
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street)
He never addressed it as infidelity. To Jordan Belfort and his men, sex with a Blue Chip was a reflex of sorts – a kind of spasm or procedure or 'niche-service', useful as a form of stress relief; as the girls were never regarded as fully human, there were no problems. There were, the brokers felt, certain liberties to which men of power were entitled.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke (Mouth)
Detective Carr sits in his chair. In a way I think it would be terrible to live in LA devoid of aspirations. How would you do it? How would you put up with the traffic and the monotony of the sun, the way people use the word hella and lie so freely? How could you stand it here if you weren't striving for something better? Oh that's right; he liked The Wolf of Wall Street. He aspires to take someone down like me, a serial killer. But he chose the wrong guy. I am done with all that. And I will not let my past dictate my future.
Caroline Kepnes (Hidden Bodies (You, #2))
Corruption,' Jordan Belfort believes, 'is endemic to human being. I mean, even men in monasteries - where enticement is hard to come by – even men in those circumstances have sex with other men and abuse children. Look at the Catholic Church! Man is an imperfect animal and he is corruptible, okay? And in finance, the liquid nature of the market makes corruption very easy. On Wall Street, this liquidity is so in your face -' he suddenly grits his teeth - 'that if you have even the slightest predisposition to the dark side, you become corrupted. In addition to which, those attracted to Wall Street have a predisposition to greed.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke (Mouth)
I don’t ask for a miracle,” Helmar resumed, “but I do need speed, boldness, and sagacity.” He was in the red leather chair beyond the end of Wolfe’s desk, with his briefcase on the little table at his elbow. His voice was a raspy oratorical baritone, hard and bony like him. He was going on. “And discretion—that is essential. You have it, I know. As for me, I am a senior partner in a law firm of the highest repute, with offices at Forty Wall Street. A young woman for whom I am responsible has disappeared, and there is reason to fear that she is doing something foolish and may even be in jeopardy. She must be found as quickly as possible.
Rex Stout (Prisoner's Base (Nero Wolfe, #21))
I love the way the rain melts the colors together, like a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. There is a moment, just after sunset, when the shops turn on their lights and steam starts to fog up the windows of the cafés. In French, this twilight time implies a hint of danger. It's called entre chien et loup, between the dog and the wolf. It was just beginning to get dark as we walked through the small garden of Palais Royal. We watched as carefully dressed children in toggled peacoats and striped woolen mittens finished the same game of improvised soccer we had seen in the Place Sainte Marthe. Behind the Palais Royal the wide avenues around the Louvre gave way to narrow streets, small boutiques, and bistros. It started to drizzle. Gwendal turned a corner, and tucked in between two storefronts, barely wider than a set of double doors, I found myself staring down a corridor of fairy lights. A series of arches stretched into the distance, topped with panes of glass, like a greenhouse, that echoed the plip-plop of the rain. It was as if we'd stepped through the witch's wardrobe, the phantom tollbooth, what have you, into another era. The Passage Vivienne was nineteenth-century Paris's answer to a shopping mall, a small interior street lined with boutiques and tearooms where ladies could browse at their leisure without wetting the bustles of their long dresses or the plumes of their new hats. It was certainly a far cry from the shopping malls of my youth, with their piped-in Muzak and neon food courts. Plaster reliefs of Greek goddesses in diaphanous tunics lined the walls. Three-pronged brass lamps hung from the ceiling on long chains. About halfway down, there was an antique store selling nothing but old kitchenware- ridged ceramic bowls for hot chocolate, burnished copper molds in the shape of fish, and a pewter mold for madeleines, so worn around the edges it might have belonged to Proust himself. At the end of the gallery, underneath a clock held aloft by two busty angels, was a bookstore. There were gold stencils on the glass door. Maison fondée en 1826.
Elizabeth Bard (Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes)
Please get off me, please, I don't wanna to have something with you" (Well said, by a woman (The Wolf of Wall Street) ), as far as I can see I really like how is made everything, unfortunately what happens is just incrediable from one point of a view. How business man, goes will go in jail for 20 years, his wife have fuck with some kind a Swedish man, who works for her husband,.. everyone should check out this film. That's how everything goes, that's what happens backstage! Anger and agressive stuff, that's the truth, don't run from it, what I saw isn't for first time, one stuff goes in silence then in shouting other go in shouting and in shouting. To have hot chick to have everything to get so devastated?? It's fucking suicide, as for me!
Deyth Banger
Another howl ruptured the quiet, still too far away to be a threat. The Beast Lord, the leader, the alpha male, had to enforce his position as much by will as by physical force. He would have to answer any challenges to his rule, so it was unlikely that he turned into a wolf. A wolf would have little chance against a cat. Wolves hunted in a pack, bleeding their victim and running them into exhaustion, while cats were solitary killing machines, designed to murder swiftly and with deadly precision. No, the Beast Lord would have to be a cat, a jaguar or a leopard. Perhaps a tiger, although all known cases of weretigers occurred in Asia and could be counted without involving toes. I had heard a rumor of the Kodiak of Atlanta, a legend of an enormous, battle-scarred bear roaming the streets in search of Pack criminals. The Pack, like any social organization, had its lawbreakers. The Kodiak was their Executioner. Perhaps his Majesty turned into a bear. Damn. I should have brought some honey. My left leg was tiring. I shifted from foot to foot . . . A low, warning growl froze me in midmove. It came from the dark gaping hole in the building across the street and rolled through the ruins, awakening ancient memories of a time when humans were pathetic, hairless creatures cowering by the weak flame of the first fire and scanning the night with frightened eyes, for it held monstrous hungry killers. My subconscious screamed in panic. I held it in check and cracked my neck, slowly, one side then another. A lean shadow flickered in the corner of my eye. On the left and above me a graceful jaguar stretched on the jutting block of concrete, an elegant statue encased in the liquid metal of moonlight. Homo Panthera onca. The killer who takes its prey in a single bound. Hello, Jim. The jaguar looked at me with amber eyes. Feline lips stretched in a startlingly human smirk. He could laugh if he wanted. He didn’t know what was at stake. Jim turned his head and began washing his paw. My saber firmly in hand, I marched across the street and stepped through the opening. The darkness swallowed me whole. The lingering musky scent of a cat hit me. So, not a bear after all. Where was he? I scanned the building, peering into the gloom. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the walls, creating a mirage of twilight and complete darkness. I knew he was watching me. Enjoying himself. Diplomacy was never my strong suit and my patience had run dry. I crouched and called out, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” Two golden eyes ignited at the opposite wall. A shape stirred within the darkness and rose, carrying the eyes up and up and up until they towered above me. A single enormous paw moved into the moonlight, disturbing the dust on the filthy floor. Wicked claws shot forth and withdrew. A massive shoulder followed, its gray fur marked by faint smoky stripes. The huge body shifted forward, coming at me, and I lost my balance and fell on my ass into the dirt. Dear God, this wasn’t just a lion. This thing had to be at least five feet at the shoulder. And why was it striped? The colossal cat circled me, half in the light, half in the shadow, the dark mane trembling as he moved. I scrambled to my feet and almost bumped into the gray muzzle. We looked at each other, the lion and I, our gazes level. Then I twisted around and began dusting off my jeans in a most undignified manner. The lion vanished into a dark corner. A whisper of power pulsed through the room, tugging at my senses. If I did not know better, I would say that he had just changed. “Kitty, kitty?” asked a level male voice. I jumped. No shapechanger went from a beast into a human without a nap. Into a midform, yes, but beast-men had trouble talking. “Yeah,” I said. “You’ve caught me unprepared. Next time I’ll bring cream and catnip toys.” “If there is a next time.
Ilona Andrews (Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1))
The mighty edifice that is Wall Street was not built on the fortunes of flamboyant speculators, as myth would have it—it was built on pennies.
John Coates (The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind)
You can't be transcendent,... which will mean to be perfect in everything. You can try to act as such person, but there is a lot of to learn. - As first you always will know the few from everything - Everything is endless! - (The Wolf of Wall Street), forgot everything what people say to you about the topic "Money"...because money are the thing which make your life interesting. You could buy the best phone, the best hotel or the best room, the best house, the best car, the best TV, the best books... the best wife... There are outside a lot of women which will sleep with you in replace of money... so reality you need money to have them... (More far than this I can't take you, because the train is too fast It will delete everything.... <----- it will just start from here.)... What I gonna say or I will say is "Good Luck and try by yourself the finish the mission".
Deyth Banger
My Number" You don’t have my number, we don’t need each other now We don’t need the city, the creed or the culture now 'Cause I feel, I feel alive, I feel, I feel alive I feel the streets are all pulling me down So people of the city I don’t need your counsel now And I don’t need your good advice, you don’t have my lover’s touch You don’t have my number, we don’t need each other now The creed or the culture, we can move beyond it now Now the wolf is knocking at my door, bang-banging, ask for more Stand here, we stand tall, we could move beyond these walls I don’t need your counsel, I don't need these city streets I don’t need that good advice 'cause we can move beyond it now You don’t have my number, we don’t need each other now The creed or the culture, you don’t have my lover’s touch 'Cause I feel, I feel alive, I feel, I feel alive I feel the streets are all far from there Do you even hear me? Do you even know my name? Can you see the ocean now? You don’t have my lover’s touch You don’t have my number, you don’t have my number People, can you hear me? Are you even listening now? 'Cause you don’t have my number, we don’t need each other now You can't steal my thunder 'cause you don’t have my lover’s touch You don’t have my number and I don’t need no one else And I don’t need these city streets, the creed or the culture now
Foals
Vấn đề của bạn là gì? Tôi muốn bắt tay với vấn đề của bạn bằng cách trở nên giàu có
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street: WOLF OF WALL STREET:Wolf of wallstreet: Wolf of wall st {wolf of wall street}:by Jordan Belfort)
It was a hefty sum, $5 million, and in truth it had little to do with setting them up. In point of fact, they paid me out of loyalty, and out of respect. And at the very crux of it, what held it all together was the fact that they still considered themselves Strattonites. And I considered them such too.
Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1))
I convince the prospect that I am a highly competent, ultraknowledgeable professional by coming off as a world-class expert in my field, right out of the gate.
Jordan Belfort (Way of the Wolf: Straight line selling: Master the art of persuasion, influence, and success / The Wolf of Wall Street)
A young reporter for the Post named Tom Wolfe followed up after my talk with an interview. The Post ran his story, “You Can So Beat the Gambling House at Blackjack, Math Expert Insists.” He was curious rather than skeptical, sympathetic but probing. Wolfe later became one of America’s most famous authors.
Edward O. Thorp (A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market)
The Wolf of Wall Street
Jim Green (3001 Unusual Facts, Funny True Stories & Odd Trivia: Amazing Book of Odd & Unusual Trivia Interesting Facts about Famous People, Odd Trivia from Science ... Unusual Facts from US & World History)
Number one rule of Wall Street: Nobody - I don't care if you're Warren Buffett or Jimmy Buffett - Nobody knows if the stock's going to go up, down, sideways, or in fucking circles, least of all stockbrokers. It's all a Fugazzi. You know what a Fugazzi is?
The Wolf of Wall Street
Home, he thought, and for an instant understood the raw physicality of the bond that achieved through the wordless contact of violence what dancers achieve through dance, what lovers—sometimes—achieve through sex. But at the same time, he saw the burning walls, the carrion crows eating dead women in the streets, Moggin’s daughter with her throat slit to the neckbone only because she lived in the wrong place at the wrong time, and disgust and horror sickened him, both at it and at himself for never having seen it before. The realization passed in an instant, as his concentration went back to what Ari was saying, Ari, who was commander now. But having seen what the bond had sprung from, he finally understood in his heart that this was his home no more. “The
Barbara Hambly (The Sun Wolf and Starhawk Series Books 1–3: The Ladies of Mandrigyn, Witches of Wenshar, and The Dark Hand of Magic)
Financial Times commentator Martin Wolf concluded in 2010: "We already know that the earthquake of the past few years has damaged Western economies, while leaving those of emerging countries, particularly Asia, standing. It has also destroyed Western prestige. The West has dominated the world economically and intellectually for at least two centuries. That epoch is now over. Hitherto, the rulers of emerging countries disliked the West's pretensions, but respected its competence. This is true no longer. Never again will the West have the sole word." I was reminded of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. When Asian economies were devastated by similarly foolish borrowing the West – including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – prescribed bitter medicine. They extolled traditional free market principles: Asia should raise interest rates to support sagging currencies, while state spending, debt, subsidies should be cut drastically. Banks and companies in trouble should be left to fail, there should be no bail-outs. South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia were pressured into swallowing the bitter medicine. President Suharto paid the ultimate price: he was forced to resign. Anger against the IMF was widespread. I was in Los Angeles for a seminar organised by the Claremont McKenna College to discuss, among other things, the Asian crisis. The Thai speaker resorted to profanity: F-- the IMF, he screamed. The Asian press was blamed by some Western academics. If we had the kind of press freedoms the West enjoyed, we could have flagged the danger before the crisis hit. Western credibility was torn to shreds when the financial tsunami struck Wall Street. Shamelessly abandoning the policy prescriptions they imposed on Asia, they decided their banks and companies like General Motors were too big to fail. How many Asian countries could have been spared severe pain if they had ignored the IMF? How vain was their criticism of the Asian press, for the almost unfettered press freedoms the West enjoyed had failed to prevent catastrophe.
Cheong Yip Seng (OB Markers: My Straits Times Story)
Two people make a crime, three make a conspiracy.
Belfort, Jordan
Truman had been able to govern the country with the cooperation of a relatively small number of Wall Street lawyers and bankers.' Huntington concludes (regretfully) this was no longer possible by the late sixties. Why not? Presidential authority was eroded. There was a broad reappraisal of governmental action and 'morality' in the post-Vietnam/post-Watergate era among political leaders who, like the general public, openly questioned 'the legitimacy of hierarchy, coercion, discipline, secrecy, and deception—all of which are, in some measure,' according to Huntington, 'inescapable attributes of the process of government.' Congressional power became more decentralized and party allegiances to the administration weakened. Traditional forms of public and private authority were undermined as 'people no longer felt the same compulsion to obey those whom they had previously considered superior to themselves in age, rank, status, expertise, character, or talents.' ¶ Throughout the sixties and into the seventies, too many people participated too much: 'Previously passive or unorganized groups in the population, blacks, Indians, Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students, and women now embarked on concerted efforts to establish their claims to opportunities, positions, rewards, and privileges, which they had not considered themselves entitled [sic] before. [Italics mine.] ¶ Against their will, these 'groups'—the majority of the population—have been denied 'opportunities, positions, rewards and privileges.' More democracy is not the answer: 'applying that cure at the present time could well be adding fuel to the flames.' Huntington concludes that 'some of the problems in governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy...Needed, instead, is a greater degree of moderation in democracy.' ¶ '...The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and non-involvement on the part of some individuals and groups. In the past, every democratic society has had a marginal population, of greater or lesser size, which has not actively participated in politics. In itself, this marginality on the part of some groups is inherently undemocratic but it is also one of the factors which has enabled democracy to function effectively. [Italics mine.]' ¶ With a candor which has shocked those trilateralists who are more accustomed to espousing the type of 'symbolic populism' Carter employed so effectively in his campaign, the Governability Report expressed the open secret that effective capitalist democracy is limited democracy! (See Alan Wolfe, 'Capitalism Shows Its Face.')
Holly Sklar (Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management)
So attached to [their lost city of Pajarocu] were and are they that they have refused to duplicate it here on any lesser scale, although duplicating it on its original scale is still far beyond their reach. What they have done instead is to duplicate its plan to perfection—without duplicating, or attempting to duplicate, its substance at all. There are “streets” paved with grass and fern between “buildings” and “manteions” that are no more than clearings in the forest marked in ways that are, to our eyes, almost undetectable. When the adult citizens we sought to question were willing to talk to us, they talked of gateways, walls and statues that did not in fact exist— or at least, that did not exist here on Blue—and described them in as much detail as if they loomed before us, together with colossal images of Hierax, Tartaros, and the rest, called by outlandish sobriquets and the objects of strange, cruel veneration. But when the streets are too badly fouled or the river rises, this phantom Pajarocu goes elsewhere, which I think an excellent idea. Our own Viron was built on the southern shore of Lake Limna; when the lake retreated, our people clung to the shiprock buildings that Pas had provided when they ought to have clung to the idea that he had provided instead, the idea of a city by the lake. Many (although certainly not all) of Viron’s troubles may ultimately have been due to this single mistaken choice. Listen to me, Horn and Hide. Listen all you phantom readers. Buildings are temporary, ideas permanent.
Gene Wolfe (On Blue's Waters (The Book of the Short Sun, #1))