Financial Markets Quotes

Financial illiteracy is like being in a rain storm and trying to jump in between the raindrops... eventually it all catches you at the same time.

Johnnie Dent Jr.

Veblen called it the price-system. Mills called it the Power Elite. It's probably no more than ninety-nine people who don't know what they are doing. They're involved in high finance. Fascinating form of gambling.

John Cage

People do not necessarily know what they are doing, because our ability to comprehend even matters that concern us directly is limited – or, in the jargon, we have ‘bounded rationality’. The world is very complex and our ability to deal with it is severely limited. Therefore, we need to, and usually do, deliberately restrict our freedom of choice in order to reduce the complexity of problems we have to face. Often, government regulation works, especially in complex areas like the modern financial market, not because the government has superior knowledge but because it restricts choices and thus the complexity of the problems at hand, thereby reducing the possibility that things may go wrong.

The truth is that banks are the last feudal kingdoms, their rulers omnipotent, divine warlords. Their key lieutenants are 'ronin' (wandering mercenary samurai) who roam financial markets ready to ally themselves to any warlord for a share of plunder. This is not the place to apply the latest management theory.