Happy New Year!
Instead of writing a list of ambitious New Year’s resolutions, I shall keep them realistic and to myself. One of my goals this year is to stay inspired, and think about my blog whenever something meaningful comes to mind! I’m always inspired by literature (although I don’t read nearly as much as I should), so I will share some of the notable quotes that I stumble upon.
Currently reading: The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson.
“I myself have learned a great deal in writing this book, but three insights in particular stand out.”
#1: “Poverty is not the result of rapacious financiers exploiting the poor. It has much more to do with the lack of financial institutions, with the absence of banks, not their presence. Only when borrowers have access to efficient credit networks can they escape from the clutches of loan sharks, and only when savers can deposit their money in reliable banks can it be channelled from the idle rich to the industrious poor.”
#2: “.. Equality and its absence. If the financial system has a defect, it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like… Money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong. Booms and busts are products, at root, of our emotional volatility. But finance also exaggerates the differences between us, enriching the lucky and the smart, impoverishing the unlucky and not-so-smart… The rewards for ‘getting it’ have never been so immense. And the penalties for financial ignorance have never been so stiff.”
#3: “.. A few things are harder to predict accurately than the timing and magnitude of financial crises, because the financial system is so genuinely complex…”
There is so much truth in those quotes.
Lastly, if you were ever wondering what the rest of the world was doing on July 24th, 2010… “Life in a Day”
