Kindleberger Quotes & Sayings

39 After almost two decades of productive revisionism, it is surely time to return our focus squarely to the consequences of America's flawed hegemony in the 1920s, as classically outlined by C. P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-1939 (Berkeley, 1986) and elaborated by Link, Stabilisierungspolitik, and Costigliola, Awkward Dominion. — Anonymous

Your best disguise is the strong impression your enemy has of you. Strong...and dead wrong. — Michael Joseph Murano

The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revivial, but finally giving up in the final collapse. — Charles P. Kindleberger

Dorothy's coming up. I think she's tight."
"That's great." I picked up my bathrobe. "I was afraid I was going to have to get some sleep."
She was bending over looking for her slippers. "Don't be such an old fluff. You can sleep all day." She found her slippers and stood up in them. "Is she really as afraid of her mother as she says?"
"If she's got any sense. Mimi's poison."
Nora screwed up her dark eyes at me and asked slowly: "What are you holding out on me?"
"Oh, dear," I said, " I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell you. Dorothy is really my daughter. I didn't know what I was doing, Nora. It was spring in Venice and I was so young and there was a moon over the ... "
"Be funny. Don't you want something to eat? — Dashiell Hammett

Give Him thanks, if you please, with me, for His great goodness towards me, which I can never sufficiently admire, for the many favors He has done to so miserable a sinner as I am. May all things praise Him. Amen. — Brother Lawrence

My mom always puts a grapefruit in my stocking. I like grapefruit, but why put it in a stocking like it's a gift? It's almost as bad as coal. — Skylar Grey

Nobody does animation better than Disney; it's just that some of us wanted out of the box. Burton was one. I was another. We were the mutual complaint society. — Henry Selick

Much of the profession is empirically bankrupt because it is no longer taught economic history. — Charles P. Kindleberger

Any good that comes our way doesn't come to us solely because we have done something good, but because God is good. — Ray Comfort

Run,' said a voice that was almost a growl. I ran like a lamb to his laughter. — Neil Gaiman

In Chapter 5 we consider swindles and defalcations. It happens that crashes and panics often are precipitated by the revelation of some misfeasance, malfeasance, or malversation (the corruption of officials) engendered during the mania. It seems clear from the historical record that swindles are a response to the greedy appetite for wealth stimulated by the boom. And as the monetary system gets stretched, institutions lose liquidity, and unsuccessful swindles are about to be revealed, the temptation to take the money and run becomes virtually irresistible. It is difficult to write on this subject without permitting the typewriter to drip with irony. An attempt will be made. — Charles P. Kindleberger

Debasement was limited at first to one's own territory. It was then found that one could do better by taking bad coins across the border of neighboring municipalities and exchanging them for good with ignorant common people, bringing back the good coins and debasing them again. More and more mints were established. Debasement accelerated in hyper-fashion until a halt was called after the subsidiary coins became practically worthless, and children played with them in the street, much as recounted in Leo Tolstoy's short story, Ivan the Fool. — Charles P. Kindleberger

What matters to us is the revelation of the swindle, fraud, or defalcation. This makes known to the world that things have not been as they should have been, that it is time to stop and see how they truly are. The making known of malfeasance, whether by the arrest or surrender of the miscreant, or by one of those other forms of confession, flight or suicide, is important as a signal that the euphoria has been overdone. The stage of overtrading may well come to an end. The curtain rises on revulsion, and perhaps discredit. — Charles P. Kindleberger

Money is a public good; as such, it lends itself to private exploitation. — Charles P. Kindleberger

The propensity to swindle grows parallel with the propensity to speculate during a boom the implosion of an asset price bubble always leads to the discovery of frauds and swindles — Charles P. Kindleberger

No, I love watching autopsies of disgusting mutant monsters — Michael Grant

There is nothing so disturbing to one's well-being and judgment as to see a friend get rich — Charles P. Kindleberger

The first derivative is the last refuge of a scoundrel. — Charles P. Kindleberger