Christopher Buckley Quotes

A free-enterprise economy depends only on markets, and according to the most advanced mathematical macroeconomic theory, markets depend only on moods: specifically, the mood of the men in the pinstripes, also known as the Boys on the Street.

Debt is the lifeblood of finance; with the rise of the securities-and-trading portion of the [financial] industry came a rise in all kinds [of debt], both public and private.

Financial institutions like to call what they do trading. Let's be honest. It's not trading; it's betting.

The trade of banks is the buying and selling of interest and exchange.

At the end of the day, the markets are my passion.

It is usually people in the money business, finance, and international trade that are really rich.

If you think Wall Street has a short memory, you're dead wrong. No, the folks who work on Wall Street, regulate Wall Street - and, above all, invest in its wares, notably its hedge funds - don't have a bad memory. They don't have any memory at all.

Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It

We tend to think of the stock and bond markets as relatively recent historical phenomena, but, in fact, there have been credit markets since human civilization first took root in the Fertile Crescent.

I've been focused on the West Coast economy and being a banker and lending in these markets.

In my first book, 'Ghosts Of Manhattan,' the setting was Wall Street, and I explored the predictable nature of a bond trader inside the compensation scheme at Bear Stearns and the government regulations of Wall Street. That was about money.

I wouldn't in any way say I distanced myself from Wall Street.

I have very good friends on Wall Street.

In banking, it was my responsibility to deliver investment opportunities and solutions to hedge fund clients, and at Bloomberg, it's my job to break down news that matters to our viewers and readers.

I think Wall Street is very important, especially to tech companies. Wall Street will get in their rhythm and go fund tech companies, and tech companies will go create jobs and employ a lot of people, so there's that aspect of Wall Street.

There's no such thing as a favorite investment. But I think I tend to invest in Asia in promising countries, in equities, in real estate, and I own precious metals, obviously.

Banks hold deposits and savings entrusted to them by individuals, by businesses, by governments and by central banks. They put that money to work, helping people to buy homes, for example, or lending to businesses to invest in expansion.

Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard.

You want to know the way to raise money? Put a transaction fee on Wall Street, so maybe we can curb some of the speculation and raise some money.

I'd love to see the secondary markets become more widespread in terms of their adoption.

Second of all, I don't think Wall Street is doing what it's supposed to be doing, even after the shameful performance of the last two years. They're are not allocating capital.

I have been in Wall Street all of my life. I love it. It has been good to me. I know many wonderful, decent, honorable, ethical, hard-working people that were in Wall Street with me.

The financial markets tend to be just a backdrop for a novel, for a heist or something that isn't necessarily integral to it. On the whole, I don't think the financial world has been well served by novels.

But Wall Street people are in fact very smart; they're funny, they're not company men who work their way up the chain.

I loved working on Wall Street. I loved the meritocracy of it and the camaraderie of the trading floor.