Andrew Carnegie Quotes

Arbitrage proof has since been widely used throughout finance and economics.

I should be sorry if on this occasion the House should decide that speculations in the funds are violations of either the moral or political law. A government hardly exists in which such speculation is disallowed.

The proprietor [land owner], producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.

I'm a futures man.

Gambling is entertainment... Financial markets, what one often refers to as speculation, is really the force by which we move capital to the best and highest use.

I've always believed that a speculative bubble need not lead to a recession, as long as interest rates are cut quickly enough to stimulate alternative investments. But I had to face the fact that speculative bubbles usually are followed by recessions. My excuse has been that this was because the policy makers moved too slowly - that central banks were typically too slow to cut interest rates in the face of a burst bubble, giving the downturn time to build up a lot of momentum.

People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.

As I have said before, the daily machinations of the stock market are like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It turns out the businessman knows more about how the economy really works than the chattering class. What a shock.

One of the main reasons that the landscape of financial stuff in America is different is that gambling is illegal there. So there's a kind of sport-like aspect to the American coverage of finance.

In reality, no one on Wall Street cares about anything except performance.

The entire economy relies on the suspension of disbelief. So does a fairy story or an animated cartoon. This means that no matter how soberly the financial experts dress, no matter how dry their language, the economy they worship can only ever be as plausible as an episode of 'SpongeBob SquarePants.'

The stock market is a giant distraction from the business of investing.

When they are employed wisely, derivatives make the world simpler because they give their buyers an ability to manage and transfer risk.

The world of derivatives is full of holes that very few people are really aware of. It's like hydrogen and oxygen sitting on the corner waiting for a little flame.

All that was clear that the profits to be had from smart people making complicated bets overwhelmed anything that could be had from servicing customers, or allocating capital to productive enterprise.

The men on the trading floor may not have been to school, but they have Ph.D.’s in man’s ignorance.

Economists don't usually make good speculators, because they think too much.

But, as soon as speculators become an important influence in the market, their business is to speculate on each others behaviour.

I'm necessarily parasitic in a way. I have done well as a parasite. But I'm still a parasite.

We've used derivatives for many, many years. I don't think derivatives are evil, per se, I think they are dangerous.

Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes a bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.

In the 1930s, there was a stretch where you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that's what's going on in today's private-equity world.

If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can't be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong?

We must put an end to both economic freeloading and economic exploitation in America. There must be no place for parasites who draw their sustenance from society without giving anything in return.