Financial Short Quotes & Sayings

It's almost sickening now that the regulators 'on the beat' while the biggest credit collapse in modern financial history unfolded are now patting themselves on the back for their 'brave' stance on short-selling! — James Chanos

Politicians and the government have become too interested in short-term gains. Of course, if you look at the direct financial returns in the short term, human space flight is expensive. But they need to look longer term. — Helen Sharman

It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation, and punishes short-cuts and abuse. — Barack Obama

Trust-me companies are companies whose financial results gallop ahead of their businesses, companies with seemingly perfect control over their quarterly sales and profits. Companies whose financial statements are loaded with footnotes: companies that short-sellers often attack but rarely dent. — Alex Berenson

In short, the elimination of the financial legacy of Reaganomics could force the United States to make some exceptionally difficult choices indeed. — Robert Gilpin

Mrs. B's story is well-known but worth telling again. She came to the United States 77 years ago, unable to speak English and devoid of formal schooling. In 1937, she founded the Nebraska Furniture Mart with $500. Last year the store had sales of $200 million, a larger amount by far than that recorded by any other home furnishings store in the United States. Our part in all of this began ten years ago when Mrs. B sold control of the business to Berkshire Hathaway, a deal we completed without obtaining audited financial statements, checking real estate records, or getting any warranties. In short, her word was good enough for us. Naturally, I was delighted to attend Mrs. B's birthday party. After all, she's promised to attend my 100th. — Warren Buffett

The worst financial transaction you will ever make is selling yourself short. — Greg Gilbert

With same day loans, you can easily acquire immediate funds, so as to deal with any short term financial crisis. These loans are unsecured in nature and can be applied for even by those with serious credit disputes. — Markus Skupeika

How can HOW help us repair our faltering global economy?
Only by getting our "hows" right can we ensure that we are sustainable. This can only be achieved when we are rooted in, and inspired by, sustainable values. The global economic meltdown supplied a perfect, but painful, example of how sustainability cannot be guided by situational values. The economic crash occurred because too many financial companies became disconnected from fundamental values and long-term sustainable thinking. Instead of nurturing sustainable collaborations, banks, lenders, borrowers and shareholders pursued short-term relationships founded on situational values. More than ever we need to get out of this cycle of crises and build long-term success and deep human connections so that we achieve enduring significance in today's globally interconnected world. — Dov Seidman

Less than a decade after the explosion of the first atom bomb the megamachine had expanded to a point where it began to dominate key areas of the whole economy of the United States: its system of control reached beyond the airfields, the rocket sites, the bomb factories, the universities, to a hundred other related areas, tying the once separate and independent enterprises to a central organization whose irrational and humanly subversive policies ensured the still further expansion of the megamachine. Financial subventions, research grants, educational subsidies, all worked unceasingly for the 'Life, Prosperity, Health' of the new rulers, headed by Goliaths in brass armor bellowing threats of defiance and destruction at the entire world. In a short time, the original military-industrial-scientific elite became the supreme Pentagon of Power, for it incorporated likewise both the bureaucratic and the educational establishments. — Lewis Mumford

Back in the 1980s, the original stated purpose of the mortgage-backed bond had been to redistribute the risk associated with home mortgage lending. Home mortgage loans could find their way to the bond market investors willing to pay the most for them. The interest rate paid by the homeowner would thus fall. The goal of the innovation, in short, was to make the financial markets more efficient. Now, somehow, the same innovative spirit was being put to the opposite purpose: to hide the risk by complicating it. The market was paying Goldman Sachs bond traders to make the market less efficient. — Michael Lewis

Is this good for English football? In the short run, Chelsea's rise has broken up what was turning into an irritating Arsenal-Manchester United duopoly. But football leagues (look at Scotland, look at Spain) can get along OK with duopolies. A monopoly, however, is a disaster. Everyone else in the Premiership has to operate on some kind of business footing, and the terror stalking Highbury and Old Trafford is that Chelsea will be immune from financial discipline forever. — Matthew Engel

That's the problem with the financial sector. Banks and the financial sector live in the short run, not the long run. In principle the government is supposed to make regulations that help the economy over time. But once it's taken over by the financial sector, the government lives in the short run too. — Michael Hudson

Some take pains to be biblical, but many [Christian financial teachers, writers, investment counselors, and seminar leaders] simply parrot their secular colleagues. Other than beginning and ending with prayer, mentioning Christ, and sprinkling in some Bible verses, there's no fundamental difference. They reinforce people's materialist attitudes and lifestyles. They suggest a variety of profitable plans in which people can spend or stockpile the bulk of their resources. In short, to borrow a term from Jesus, some Christian financial experts are helping people to be the most successful 'rich fools' they can be. — Randy Alcorn

Just as the financial crisis was incubated when unaccountable bank executives created a culture of rewarding short-term profits without wanting to know the ugly details about their mortgage-backed securities, so too does medicine's lack of accountability create an institutional culture that fosters overtreating and runaway costs. — Martin Makary

We need to find a way to safeguard humanity whilst still offering short-term financial incentives. For sure, we need innovators in finance more than we need innovation in technology. — David W. Wood

If we start to think about trust as a public good (like clean air and water), we see that we can all benefit from higher levels of trust in terms of communicating with others, making financial transitions smoother, simplifying contracts, and many other business and social activities. Without constant suspicion, we can get more out of our exchanges with others while spending less time making sure that others will fulfill their promises to us. Yet as the tragedy of commons exemplifies, in the short term it is beneficial for each individual to violate and take advantage of the established trust.

I suspect that most people and companies miss or ignore the fact that trust is an important public resource and that losing it can have long-term negative consequences for everyone involved. It doesn't take much to violate trust. Just a few bad players in the market can spoil it for everyone else. — Dan Ariely

It's not easy to stand apart from mass hysteria - to believe that most of what's in the financial news is wrong, to believe that most important financial people are either lying or deluded - without being insane. — Michael Lewis

Should I Invest in a Timeshare? In my professional career, timeshare properties have been by far the worst investments I've seen. Buyers are lured with a free dinner or spa coupon, only to endure a hard sales pitch by peddlers who do not know the meaning of the word no. This will be the most expensive dinner you will ever not buy, if you sign up for the "free seminar" in exchange for a restaurant coupon. You can't borrow against a timeshare or use it like a regular financial asset, and you can only reside in it for very short and specific periods of time. If you are really considering getting a timeshare, then only buy it on the secondary market; simply do an Internet search - you'll find plenty of remorseful sellers offering you their units at huge discounts. — Sherwin Brown

Institutions of the newer participants in global finance had not been tested, until recently ... recent crisis have underscored certain financial structure vulnerabilities that are not readily assuaged in the short run. — Alan Greenspan

I'll always understand the Schadenfreude aspect to short-selling. I get that no one will always like it. I'm also convinced to the deepest part of my bones that short-selling plays the role of real-time financial watchdog. It's one of the few checks and balances in the market. — James Chanos

In 2008 it was the entire financial system that was at risk. We were still short. But you don't want the system to crash. It's sort of like the flood's about to happen and you're Noah. You're on the ark. Yeah, you're okay. But you are not happy looking out at the flood. That's not a happy moment for Noah. By — Michael Lewis

Long term thinking and planing enhances short term decision making. Make sure you have a plan of your life in your hand, and that includes the financial plan and your mission. — Manoj Arora

History teaches us that the capacity of things to get worse is limitless. Roman history suggests that the short, happy life of the American republic may be coming to its end ... the US will probably maintain a facade of constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it. — Chalmers Johnson

The people on the short side of the subprime mortgage market had gambled with the odds in their favor. The people on the other side - the entire financial system, essentially - had gambled with the odds against them. Up to this point, the story of the big short could not be simpler. What's strange and complicated about it, however, is that pretty much all the important people on both sides of the gamble left the table rich. — Michael Lewis

What the US evidently sought to impose by main force on Iraq was a state apparatus whose fundamental mission was to facilitate conditions for profitable capital accumulation on the part of both domestic and foreign capital. I call this kind of state apparatus a neoliberal state. The freedoms it embodies reflect the interests of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations, and financial capital. Bremer invited the Iraqis, in short, to ride their horse of freedom straight into the neoliberal corral. — David Harvey

Egypt was rich in copper ore, which, as the base of bronze, had been valuable through the entire Meditarranean world. By 1150 B.C., however, the Iron Age had succeeded the bronze Age. Egypt had no iron and so lost power in the Asiatic countries where the ore existed; the adjustment of its economy to the new metal caused years of inflation and contributed to the financial distress of the central government. The pharaoh could not meet the expenses of his government; he had no money to pay the workers on public buildings, and his servants robbed him at every opportunity. Still a god in theory, he was satirized in literature and became a tool of the oligarchy. During the centuries after the twelfth B.C., the Egyptian state disintegrated into local units loosely connected by trade. Occasional spurts of energy interrupted the decline, but these were short-lived and served only to illuminate the general passivity. — Norman F. Cantor

It seems perfectly reasonable to give the greatest weight to the longest series. South Africa were only offered a five-Test series in Australia and England when they were considered worthy opponents and when the authorities considered that sufficient crowds would allow such a series to be a viable financial option. This link between the duration of a Test series and the money it is likely to generate is a constant throughout the history of the game and has been made more complex over the last three decades by the introduction of the various one-day formats. The constant also remains that a five-Test series (six being a thing of the past) is the ultimate examination of the relative strength of two teams and the current fashion for a quick two-match 'shoot-out' can only harm the standing of Test cricket whatever the short-term financial rewards. — Patrick Ferriday

Sometimes men present a swagger that suggests a prowess, whether it's sexual or financial. L.A. seems to be a place where trying too hard is almost a given. Some people are unapologetic about how blatantly they represent who they are through what they wear or drive. Subtlety is in short supply. — Michael C. Hall

The genuine object of debate raised by the [2008 financial] crisis ought to be how to overcome the short-termism to which we have been led by a consumerism intrinsically destructive of all genuine investment in the future, a short-termism which has systematically, and not accidentally, been translated into decomposition of investment into speculation. — Bernard Stiegler

The information superhighways will have the same effect as our present superhighways or motorways. They will cancel out the landscape, lay waste to the territory and abolish real distances. What is merely physical and geographical in the case of our motorways will assume its full dimensions in the electronic field with the abolition of mental distances and the absolute shrinkage of time. All short circuits (and the establishment of this planetary hyper-space is tantamount to one immense short circuit) produce electric shocks. What we see emerging here is no longer merely territorial desert, but social desert, employment desert, the body itself being laid waste by the very concentration of information. A kind of Big Crunch, contemporaneous with the Big Bang of the financial markets and the information networks. We are merely at the dawning of the process, but the waste and the wastelands are already growing much faster than the computerization process itself. — Jean Baudrillard

Softly and kindly remind yourself, 'I cannot own anything.' It is a valuable thought to keep in mind as you struggle to improve your financial picture, worry about investments, and plan how to acquire more and more. It is a universal principle which you are part of. You must release everything when you truly awaken. Are you letting your life go by in frustration and worry over not having enough? If so, relax and remember that you only get what you have for a short period of time. When you awaken you will see the folly of being attached to anything. — Wayne Dyer

Cash - in savings accounts, short-term CDs or money market deposits - is great for an emergency fund. But to fulfill a long-term investment goal like funding your retirement, consider buying stocks. The more distant your financial target, the longer inflation will gnaw at the purchasing power of your money. — Suze Orman

There are only a handful of countries that have experienced what Indonesia has endured: financial crisis, political instability, separatism, ethnic conflicts, terrorism and natural disasters. Given the array of challenges that confronted us, what Indonesia has become today is nothing short of remarkable. Indonesia today is a country with a different Islam, democracy and modernity can go hand in hand. — Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

What we're going to do is redouble our efforts on financial regulatory reform, because that has in it sensible things like say on pay, so at least the shareholders are minding the store, sensible things like saying, for heaven's sakes, compensation should be focused on - on long term, so that you don't have rewards for short-term risk-taking. — Christina Romer

Your immediate environment is comprised of coffee shops, supermarkets, websites, apps and all kinds of things - none of which have an interest in your long-term or short-term financial well-being. — Dan Ariely

Janey was planning a short engagement, she'd simpered, and so, of course, the inevitable collection for the wedding present would soon follow. Of all the compulsory financial contributions, that is the one that irks me most. Two people wander around John Lewis picking out lovely items for themselves, and then they make other people pay for them. It's bare-faced effrontery. They choose things like plates, bowls and cutlery-I mean, what are they doing at the moment: shoveling food from packets into their mouths with their bare hands? I simply fail to see how the act of legally formalizing a human relationship necessitates friends, family and coworkers upgrading the contents of their kitchen for them. — Gail Honeyman

All too often, the pitchmen are selling the notion that if you gain 'control' over your financial destiny - pick your own stocks and execute your own trades - it will be the first step on a short road to riches. — Gary Weiss

Don't make career choices on short-term financial gain. Job satisfaction and career enjoyment are far more important. — Henry Samueli

I stare at my plate, unable to confess even to Kelsey what I've discovered in the past couple of months - that my dependence on Dean and my lack of career or even job stability is downright frightening. Without Dean or my own financial security, it's just a few short steps to a life of constant transition and uncertainty. — Nina Lane

The memory of the financial community is proverbially and distressingly short. — Benjamin Graham

What one thing does the world need most today-apart, that is, from the all-inclusive thing we call righteousness? Aren't you inclined to agree that what this old world needs is just the art of being kind? Every time I visit a factory or any other large business concern, I find myself trying to diagnose whether the atmosphere is one of kindliness or the reverse. And somehow, if there is palpably lacking that spirit of kindness, the owners ... have fallen short of achieving 24-carat success no matter how imposing the financial balance sheet may be. — B.C. Forbes

As the United States continues its slow but steady recovery from the depths of the financial crisis, nobody actually wants a massive austerity package to shock the economy back into recession, and so the odds have always been high that the game of budgetary chicken will stop short of disaster. Looming past the cliff, however, is a deep chasm that poses a much greater challenge
the retooling of the country's economy, society, and government necessary for the United States to perform effectively in the twenty-first century. — Fareed Zakaria

The government - the ultimate short-term-oriented player - cannot withstand much pain in the economy or the financial markets. Bailouts and rescues are likely to occur, though not with sufficient predictability for investors to comfortably take advantage. The government will take enormous risks in such interventions, especially if the expenses can be conveniently deferred to the future. Some of the price-tag is in the form of back- stops and guarantees, whose cost is almost impossible to determine. — Seth Klarman

Countries are not like financial markets. Social change cannot be executed as swiftly as credit-default swaps. You cannot sell short on social commitments and practical responsibilities. — George Papandreou

Best definition of "investing" is "gambling with the odds in your favor." The people on the short side of the subprime mortgage market had gambled with the odds in their favor. The people on the other side - the entire financial system, essentially - had gambled with the odds against them. — Michael Lewis