black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.

Alan Greenspan

Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Capitalism Cardinal Demand Integrity Interest Market Piece Trustworthy Vice Virtue
Regulation – which is based on force and fear – undermines the moral base of business dealings. It becomes cheaper to bribe a building inspector than to meet his standards of construction. Protection of the consumer by regulation is thus illusory.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Base Business Deal Fear Force Regulation Undermine
This decade is strewn with examples of bright people who thought they built a better mousetrap that could consistently extract abnormal returns from the financial markets.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Better Built Decade Example Financial Market Mousetrap People
I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I’ve said.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Clear Guess Out Particular Turn Warn You
I love to play tennis and golf, listen to music, watch baseball and root for the Redskins.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Baseball Listen Love Music Olf Play Redskin Root Tennis
The gut-feel of the 55-year old trader is more important than the mathematical elegance of the 25-year old genius.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Elegance Feel Generation Gut Important Mathematical More Old Trader Year
At the risk of some oversimplification, if the skill composition of our work force meshed fully with the needs of our increasingly complex capital-stock, wage-skill differentials would be stable.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Capital Composition Force Meshed Need Oversimplification Risk Skill Stock Work
And whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Destruction Mass Over Publicize Weapon Whatever
But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?
ALAN GREENSPAN

Country Decade Escalate Irrational Past Subject
There are no easy choices. Easy choices are long gone.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Choice Easy Gone Long No
I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Amateur Average Band Big Fade Fairy Good Musician Professional
Now, I only play very occasionally, and in fact, more piano than clarinet or sax.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Clarinet Fact More Occasionally Pay Piano Sax
Although the outlook is clouded by a number of uncertainties, the central tendencies of the projections .. imply continued good economic performance in the United States.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Central Cloud Country Number Outlook Projection Tendency Uncertain
Excessive optimism shows the seeds of its own reversal in the form of imbalances that tend to grow over time.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Excessive Grow Over Own Reversal Seed Show Time
It’s hard to overemphasize how important Ford’s deregulation was. True, most of the benefits took years to unfold-rail freight rates, for example hardly budged at first.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Benefit Deregulation Hard Important Look Overemphasize True Year
By far the most significant event in finance during the past decade has been the extraordinary development and expansion of financial derivatives.
ALAN GREENSPAN

Decade Development During Event Expansion Extraordinary Far Finance Most Significant

Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Greenspan Quotes