American - Journalist | April 30, 1967 -
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.
James Surowiecki
InnovationMoneyInternetSayBecome
All things being equal, letting people make decisions for themselves will produce smarter outcomes, collectively, than relying on government planners.
GovernmentPeopleDecisionsWill
The world's central banks and the International Monetary Fund still have vaults full of bullion, even though currencies are no longer backed by gold. Governments hold on to it as a kind of magic symbol, a way of reassuring people that their money is real.
MoneyPeopleGoldWorldMagicKind
The value of a currency is, ultimately, what someone will give you for it - whether in food, fuel, assets, or labor. And that's always and everywhere a subjective decision.
FoodDecisionValueSomeoneYou
You can't be rich unless everyone else agrees that you're rich.
RichYouEveryoneElseEveryone Else
The business of America shouldn't be subsidizing business.
BusinessAmerica
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.
StruggleValueLaborMoreHardReal
Critics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but for the most part it's the other way around: companies must make what consumers want and deliver it at the lowest possible price.
CapitalismThinkPriceWantPossible
Companies, like people, don't much like to change.
ChangePeopleLikeMuchCompanies
Pop music thrives on repetition. You know a song's a hit when you've heard it so often that you'll be happy never to hear it again.
MusicHappyBe HappySongYouKnow
Speculators get a bad rap. In the popular imagination they're greedy, heedless, and amoral, adept at price manipulations and dirty tricks. In reality, they often play a key role in making markets run smoothly.
ImaginationKeyRealityBadPlay
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.
ImpactStock MarketBankOwnMarket
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