"The lesson, surely, is that the recurring nature and the frequency of such follies, and their mutation into hitherto undreamt of forms, suggest that they are in fact an inherent cost of capitalism, or even human nature … The delusion now would be to believe that any system of regulation could prevent such crises and busts happening again."
- Sean O'Grady, British economics journalist
Source: Independent (London) (November 20, 2009)
"We will have more crises and none of them will look like this because no two crises have anything in common except human nature."
- Alan Greenspan (1926–), US economist, former chairman of Federal Reserve
Source: Interview on BBC TV (September 8, 2009)
"Companies that weren't much more than pot-fueled ideas scrawled on napkins by up-too-late bong smokers were taken public via IPOs, hyped in the media, and sold to the public for mega-millions. It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out 50-story windows, and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement." - Matt Taibbi (1970–), US journalist
On the dot.com bubble of 1999–2000.
Source: Rolling Stone (New York) (July 2009)
"Give a small number of people the power to enrich themselves beyond everyone's wildest dreams, a philosophical rationale to explain all the damage they're causing, and they will not stop until they've run the world economy off a cliff."
- Philipp Meyer (1975?–), US novelist and former financial trader
Source: Independent (London) (April 27, 2009)
"The uncomfortable truth is that we all enjoyed the party far too much to query where all the booze was coming from. Now we seem intent on lynching the barman for letting us get drunk and attacking the Government for letting us get a hangover."
- Sean O'Grady, British economics journalist
Referring to the financial crisis of 2008–09.
Source: Independent (London) (April 2, 2009)
"We were on our own for years and we went too far, too fast, in too little time … We're just like kids whose parents went away for the weekend and we trashed the whole house."
- Hallgrimur Helgason (1959–), Icelandic novelist and journalist
On the implosion of Iceland's financial services industry.
Source: Quoted in the Guardian (London) (January 26, 2009)
"That’s our mirror. Every dip, every crash, every bubble that’s burst, a testament to our brilliant stupidity. This one gave us the railroads. This one the internet. This one the slave trade. And if we hope to do anything about saving the environment, or getting to other worlds, we’ll need a bubble for that too. Everything I’ve ever done in my life worth anything has been done in a bubble: in a state of extreme hope and trust and stupidity."
- Lucy Prebble (1981–), British playwright
Spoken by Jeffrey Skilling, CEO of Enron, as he points to a chart showing booms and bust in the US stock market
Source: Enron (2009)
"In that restaurant, crammed with self-satisfied know-nothings, we had gazed upon the amoral soul of the housing boom, the crux, the fulcrum, the place where so many dreams would begin, and where heartbreak and financial collapse would surely follow."
- Larry McDonald, US former trader at Lehman Brothers
On a restaurant frequented by mortgage salesmen at the height of the subprime lending boom
Source: A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Incredible Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers (2009)
"Once you’re in a bubble, it needs nerves of steel to stay out. Can you imagine the pressure? On any trader? Everyone around you is making money … and you’re the one who says I don’t believe in securitised credit arrangements?" Sir - David Hare (1947–), British playwright
Source: The Power of Yes (2009)
"There’s a strange thing goes on inside a bubble. It’s hard to describe. People who are in it can’t see outside of it, don’t believe there is an outside."
- Lucy Prebble (1981–), British playwright
Source: Enron (2009)
History records no case where the bubble gracefully deflated, accompanied by a slight hiss of escaping optimism. The speculative episode always ends with a loud explosion."
- Andreas Whittam Smith (1937–), British journalist
Source: Independent (London) (January 28, 2008)
"If the financial system has a defect, it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like … money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong. Booms and busts are products, at root, of our emotional volatility."
- Niall Ferguson (1964–), British historian
Source: The Ascent of Money (2008)
"Unsustainable situations usually go on longer than most economists think possible. But they always end, and when they do, it's often painful."
- Paul R. Krugman (1953–), US economist
Source: Address given in Bangkok (September 2005)
"Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria."
- Sir John Templeton (1912–2008), American-born British investor and philanthropist
Source: Quoted in Short-term Trading in the New Stock Market (Toni Turner, 2005)
"The four most expensive words in the English language are, "This time, it's different."" Sir John Templeton (1912–2008), American-born British investor and philanthropist
Source: Quoted in The Four Pillars of Investing (William J. Bernstein, 2002)
"Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There's a problem, though: they are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands."
- Warren Buffett (1930–), US entrepreneur and financier
Source: Letter to shareholders (2000)
"In the next economic downturn there will be an outbreak of bitterness and contempt for the supercorporate chieftains who pay themselves millions. In every major economic downturn in US history the villains have been the heroes during the preceding boom."
- Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005), US management consultant and academic
Source: Quoted in “Seeing Things As They Really Are,” Forbes (Robert Lenzner and Stephen S. Johnson, 1987)
