Category: Quote of the Day

“It’s easy to find a trend and ride the train. The problem is, managers don’t know when to get off it.” – Peter Rup, discussing the collapse of Ospraie Management LLC’s commodities hedge fund.

“Lehman Brothers Holdings has gone bankrupt. Here is a firm that was founded in 1850. It survived the Civil War and the Great Depression. It did not survive the current breakdown. Anyone who thinks this crisis is some minor affair is not paying attention.” – Dr. Gary North

“In financial crises, your actual capital adequacy and liquidity does not matter. Both Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns — and Lehman particularly — were felt to be adequately capitalized only days before their fall. But once people thought that the end was near, the trading stopped, liquidity dried up, and the capital fled.” – Steven M. Davidoff

“…we have yet to see a genuine effort by our national security leaders to engage the public to frankly and openly inform them on where we face major threats, how best the community should better protect itself and improve risk reduction measures. In fact the reverse is true: a range of government reports relating to Australia’s ability to respond to large-scale emergencies have been embargoed on the grounds that to share that information with the public would only serve to frighten people.” – Australian Strategic Policy Institute Strategic Insights Newsletter # 39 – Taking a punch: Building a more resilient …

"He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" – Matthew 16:2-3

‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.’ So, if government financial ‘favors’ are granted to reckless investment firms (Bear Stearns) and now mortgage borrowers, what about other economically vital ‘multiplier’ industries like: automakers, airlines, credit card and insurance companies and even corporate real estate lenders? The logical conclusion for this current drift is hyperinflation. In order to make good on its promises the Federal Government will have to resort to the printing press…with a vengeance. – John Browne

While bankers do control the issuance of credit, they cannot control themselves. Bankers are the fatal flaw in their deviously opaque system that has substituted credit for money and debt for savings. The bankers have spread their credit-based system across the world by catering to basic human needs and ambition and greed; and while human needs can be satisfied, ambition and greed cannot-and the bankers’ least of all. – Darryl Schoon

"In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock " – Thomas Jefferson

“…we have the phenomenon called inflation which is the appearance of rising prices. I emphasis the word ‘appearance’ because in reality prices are not rising at all. What we’re seeing is that the value of the dollar is going down, that’s the real side of the equation. If we had real money based on gold or silver or anything tangible that couldn’t just be created out of thin air, it could be based on microphones, that they couldn’t just create with the stroke of a pen, you would see then that prices would remain stable over a long period of …

“The game of chicken that foreigners have been playing with their $[US Dollar] reserves will come to an end. Someone will flinch. The world’s banking system primarily uses Dollars for its reserves. The other currencies used as reserves, Yen, Pounds, Euros, etc. also use Dollars as reserves. Countries are using each other as reserves in a never ending circle of falsely created values. Think of it this way, it is like two people trying to hold each other up off the ground at the same time without either touching the ground. There is no backing or foundation to any currency …

“[John Connor is] ‘the leader of the resistance, fighting artificially intelligent machines determined to annihilate the human race’ Did he strike you that way? Leader of a scrappy band of rebels? Luke Skywalker type?” – Richard T. Jones as FBI Agent James Ellison in the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (Script by Josh Friedman)

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” – John Wesley

“Anybody moves, and they’re dead meat! (Pause, as he hears many vehicle engines approaching.) Oh, no, I think we’re all dead meat!” – Adam Cockburn as Jedediah Jr., in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Screenplay by Terry Hayes and George Miller)

"Committee: The unwilling, selected from the unfit, to do the unnecessary." – Margaret Thatcher

“…anyone who has been dragging his feet and has still got the bulk of his savings in the banking system, particularly the U.S. banking system, it’s getting almost too late to act. You need to move very quickly to get the bulk of your savings out of the weaker banks…ideally…you should own U.S. Treasuries directly in a money market fund…don’t sit around until it’s too late…finding yourself at the back of the line in front of your bank.” – Robert Prechter, quoted in Once in 100 Year Crisis?