Michael Lewis Quotes

Financially, I've lost money and made money, but I know my way around financially.

When we're in a peak, we make a ton of money, and as soon as we make a ton of money, we're desperately looking for a way to spend it. And we diversify into areas that, frankly, we don't know how to run very well.

People will make worse financial decisions for them if they're choosing from a lot of options than if they're choosing from a few options. If they have more options they're more likely to avoid stocks and put all their money in money market accounts, which doesn't even grow at the rate of inflation.

When I first got money, I went through it like everybody else, because I didn't know. But, right now, I've educated myself and placed smart people around me. I surrounded myself with people who not only are intelligent and effective about finances, taxes, and money management, but they (also) love me.

The idea that it's smart to allow Wall Street firms, with this "too big to fail" imprimatur, to become hedge funds again - it's unconscionable. You're essentially saying we're going to take some elites in our society and let them roll the bones in the marketplace, and if it works out they get rich, and if it doesn't work out the taxpayer comes in again. That seems absolutely crazy to me. That seems to be where they're headed. I mean, maybe they're not and I'm wrong. Maybe they'll do sensible things. It's hard to know! There doesn't seem to be a plan.

One of many strengths that I often see in successful women on Wall Street is a responsible balance between risk taking and risk mitigation - the ability to assess situations smartly and make the right medium-to-long-term decisions without being lured into reckless, short-term profit-taking.

When you grow up in America today, most schools don't teach you about money and investing. You could literally take a class in woodshop or auto in high school and not take a class on money.

Somehow, there is this feeling that women require remedial financial education, and so everything must be dumbed down. The reality is that we all need a lot more education, but guys just go ahead and invest anyway.

When you first come in the NBA, you have a lot of conversations about saving your money, financially educating yourself, not just trusting whoever it is handling your money, not just having those meetings once a year, and not really putting the effort into learning the same way you learn your craft on the court.

I'm completely irresponsible, I'm afraid. I'm ignorant about money as a commodity - I have never really understood it.

Today, there's no excuse for not learning how to get our financial houses in order. Some of us close our eyes, take a deep breath and say a prayer when it comes to managing our finances.

It's important for students to learn to make smart money management decisions before heading off to college or the entering the workforce.

We are young; we are naive with money. Money can go fast. If anyone thinks he is something better just because he has more money in the account, then he can very quickly fall on your face.

Whatever you do, don't sink your life's savings into cliche items.

The way I've always governed my life as far as fiscal policy goes is I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb about it, so I surround myself with smart people in much the same way a hole surrounds itself with a doughnut. I just pay things off. That's all I do.

Let's also teach people about pensions and savings, insurance and the like. But if they aren't already familiar with numbers that won't be as effective as it might be.

Republicans are suggesting that you take your retirement money and invest it in the stock market to take care of yourself but that leaves you with choices that you may not know anything about. The purpose of social Security is that you don't fall through the crack and find yourself destitute.

If anything is evident about people who manage money, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one that is protected in its highly imperfect profession by the mystery that is thought to enfold the subject of economics in general and of money in particular.

No one in his right mind would walk into the cockpit of an airplane and try to fly it, or into an operating theater and open a belly. And yet they think nothing of managing their retirement assets. I've done all three, and I'm here to tell you that managing money is, in its most critical elements even more demanding than the first two.

There seems to be an unwritten rule on Wall Street: If you don't understand it, then put your life savings into it. Shun the enterprise around the corner, which can at least be observed, and seek out the one that manufactures an incomprehensible product.

Most people struggle financially because they take advice from sales people, not rich people.

Children are rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money. There are, however, exceptions, and such children are an excellent addition to any party.

It is no difficult trick to bring a great deal of energy, study, and native ability into Wall Street and to end up with losses instead of profits. These virtues, if channeled in the wrong directions, become indistinguishable from handicaps.

I read. It affects every decision that I make. Every dollar that I spend, every dollar that I make.

I very much support financial education in schools.