James Surowiecki quotes - page 2

Corporate welfare isn't necessarily a bad thing. (James Surowiecki)
In American politics, 'Europe' is usually a code word for 'big government.' View quote
James Surowiecki
Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake. View quote
James Surowiecki
If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the consumer market were all going to help smaller companies thrive at the expense of the slow-moving giants of the Fortune 500, apparently you were wrong. View quote
James Surowiecki
In a world where companies increasingly know about their business in real time, it makes no sense that public reporting mostly follows the old quarterly schedule. Companies sit on vital information until reporting day, at which point the market goes crazy. View quote
James Surowiecki
Of course, plenty of people don't think that guaranteeing affordable health insurance is a core responsibility of government. View quote
James Surowiecki
Technological innovation has dramatically lowered the cost of computing, making it possible for large numbers of consumers to own powerful new technologies at reasonably low prices. View quote
James Surowiecki
A consumer-finance agency is a good thing, but it would do well to teach consumers a simple lesson: if you don't understand the deal you're making, don't make it. View quote
James Surowiecki
On Wall Street, fraudulent schemes tend to thrive during economic booms, and to blow up when times turn tough. View quote
James Surowiecki
Publishers, naturally, loathe used books and have developed strategies to depress the secondhand market. They bring out new, even more expensive editions of popular textbooks every three to four years, in a classic cycle of planned obsolescence. View quote
James Surowiecki
All things being equal, letting people make decisions for themselves will produce smarter outcomes, collectively, than relying on government planners. (James Surowiecki)
Pop music thrives on repetition. You know a song's a hit when you've heard it so often that you'll be happy never to hear it again. View quote
James Surowiecki
In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they'd never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy. View quote
James Surowiecki
If we want our regulators to do better, we have to embrace a simple idea: regulation isn't an obstacle to thriving free markets; it's a vital part of them. View quote
James Surowiecki
Medical tourism can be considered a kind of import: instead of the product coming to the consumer, as it does with cars or sneakers, the consumer is going to the product. View quote
James Surowiecki
Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a few days and you'll be thin for life. View quote
James Surowiecki
The desire for reinvention seems to arise most often when companies hear the siren call of synergy and start to expand beyond their core businesses. View quote
James Surowiecki
A long-term crisis, after a certain point, no longer seems like a crisis. It seems like the way things are. View quote
James Surowiecki
Developing countries often have hypertrophied bureaucracies, requiring businesses to deal with enormous amounts of red tape. View quote
James Surowiecki
In terms of productivity - that is, how much a worker produces in an hour - there's little difference between the U.S., France, and Germany. But since more people work in America, and since they work so many more hours, Americans create more wealth. View quote
James Surowiecki
Companies, like people, don't much like to change. (James Surowiecki)
Being unemployed is even more disastrous for individuals than you'd expect. Aside from the obvious harm - poverty, difficulty paying off debts - it seems to directly affect people's health, particularly that of older workers. View quote
James Surowiecki
The autocracies of the Arab world have been as economically destructive as they've been politically repressive. View quote
James Surowiecki
Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably smart - smarter even sometimes than the smartest people in them. View quote
James Surowiecki
Of course, presidents are always blamed or rewarded for the state of the economy. View quote
James Surowiecki