James Altucher Quotes
I loved Internet businesses, having built and sold one. And I loved the financial business, despite the fact that it was almost all a scam.
Altucher, James. Choose Yourself! Lioncrest Publishing, 2013.
Addressing Theodore Roosevelt in 1896:
For many general government regulations—labor, environment, non discrimination—the small business has a proportionately heavier burden of compliance. So large businesses have always been able to count on small business to lobby against regulation and for deregulation. However, when it comes to financial regulation such as the Dodd-Frank regulations essentially apply to large businesses. As a matter of fact, small businesses were on many ways the most frequent victims of the large banks and investment bank excesses in the Meltdown of 2008. Before most of the regulations could even take effect, the financial industry was already trying to get small business to lobby to roll back the protective regulations preventing future meltdowns and bank failure resulting from loose regulation and greedy irresponsible financial industry behavior. The President campaigned to convince the small business not to support the finance industry over their usual “knee jerk” reaction to any regulation.
While not every person in the stock market was dishonest, a large number were, and the system itself was inherently unfair and disadvantaged the average investor. Despite the many reforms attempted over the years, as the 2008 meltdown proved, the same problem was still with us. Capone was essentially right then and even today.
Arguably, for most of American History, most of the “smartest” people contributed to manufacturing, construction, research and development—activities that produce things that are wanted and/or needed. However, Wall Street began attracting and paying for some of the smartest people in the society, who when they engaged in finance—not only contributed less to manufacturing, but began to create highly complex financial instruments and procedures that few people could understand and with which regulators have difficulty understanding. These and the other schemes of financing have been major factors in the economic problems that have beset the economy including the meltdown of 2008 and the subsequent Great Rescission.
A “stock-jobber” at that time referred to a stock broker who bought and sold shares of companies and enterprises. Today it tends to refer to an unscrupulous stock broker or a short term speculator. In the 18th century, economists like Say questioned whether or not the stock jobbers performed any useful economic or other function. His and others concluded “no.” By the 21st century, many were asking the same question. So it is not a new issue as to the political debate over the utility of part of the financial industry. The short term speculators were for years considered gamblers until it was discovered that the more successful ones generally had inside information (often illegal) or used computer trading to take advantage of other shareholders whose computers were not as fast. However, the Great Depression and the Great Depression called into question whether or not the financial industry was itself a hazard to national economies if not the world economy. That questioning began in the 18th century.
Despite this, he recommended that the average person should participate in some limited ways.
James Altucher is an American hedge-fund manager, author, podcaster and entrepreneur who has founded or cofounded over 20 companies. He has published 20 books and he is a contributor to publications including The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and The Huffington Post.
