James Surowiecki quotes - page 3

In order to work well, markets need a basic level of trust. (James Surowiecki)
Standards wars involve lots of variables, and understanding them often seems more an art than a science. They generally involve just two big players, and end in a winner-take-all situation. View quote
James Surowiecki
Politically speaking, it's always easier to shell out money for a disaster that has already happened, with clearly identifiable victims, than to invest money in protecting against something that may or may not happen in the future. View quote
James Surowiecki
In the struggle between capital and labor, more often than not capital has won, because the real source of value for most companies has historically been the hard assets that they owned and controlled. View quote
James Surowiecki
If companies tell us more, insider trading will be worth less. View quote
James Surowiecki
You might think of consumption as a fairly passive activity, but buying new products and services is actually pretty risky, at least if you value your time and money. View quote
James Surowiecki
Life insurance became popular only when insurance companies stopped emphasizing it as a good investment and sold it instead as a symbolic commitment by fathers to the future well-being of their families. View quote
James Surowiecki
You can't fuel real economic growth with indiscriminate credit. You can only fuel it with well-allocated, long-term investment. View quote
James Surowiecki
Now, modern economies have a very effective mechanism for deciding if salaries are really too high: it's called the free market. That's how most people's salaries are set, after all, including those of major-league baseball players and European soccer players. View quote
James Surowiecki
The truth is that the United States doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one. View quote
James Surowiecki
Patrimonial capitalism's legacy is that many people see reform as a euphemism for corruption and self-dealing. (James Surowiecki)
Lower oil prices won't, by themselves, topple the mullahs in Iran. But it's significant that, historically, when oil prices have been low, Iranian reformers have been ascendant and radicals relatively subdued, and vice versa when prices have been high. View quote
James Surowiecki
Workers who come to the U.S. see their wages and their standard of living boosted sharply simply by crossing the border. That's a good thing, and one of the best arguments for immigration reform, even if you'll rarely hear a politician make it. View quote
James Surowiecki
Of course, politicians always say they're just describing their opponents' positions, even if they are in fact offering absurd caricatures, if not outright lies. View quote
James Surowiecki
Of course, looking tough on inflation is part of any central banker's job description: if investors believe that inflation is going to get out of control, you end up with higher interest rates and capital flight, and a vicious circle quickly ensues. View quote
James Surowiecki
Being out of a job can erode people's confidence and their sense of possibility; and employers, often unfairly, tend to take long-term unemployment as a signal that something is wrong. View quote
James Surowiecki
As technology improves, on-screen avatars look more and more like real people. When they start looking too real, though, we pull away. These almost-humans aren't quite right; they look creepy, like zombies. View quote
James Surowiecki
The Internet has become a remarkable fount of economic and social innovation largely because it's been an archetypal level playing field, on which even sites with little or no money behind them - blogs, say, or Wikipedia - can become influential. View quote
James Surowiecki
Discussions of health care in the U.S. usually focus on insurance companies, but, whatever their problems, they're not the main driver of health-care inflation: providers are. View quote
James Surowiecki
If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars. View quote
James Surowiecki
The U.S. is excellent at importing cheap products from the rest of the world. Let's try importing some human capital instead. (James Surowiecki)
The fact that industries wax and wane is a reality of any economic system that wants to remain dynamic and responsive to people's changing tastes. View quote
James Surowiecki
The stock market has an insidious effect on C.E.O.s' moods, because of its impact not just on their companies but on their own bank accounts. View quote
James Surowiecki
Paradoxically, the best way for a group to be smart is for each person in it to think and act as independently as possible. View quote
James Surowiecki
Until the nineteen-seventies, Western countries paid little attention to corruption overseas, and bribery was seen as an unpleasant but necessary part of doing business there. In some European countries, businesses were even allowed to deduct bribes as an expense. View quote
James Surowiecki