Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Quotes on bankers

Bankers are just like anyone else, except richer.
- Ogden Nash-

Banks have done more injury to religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.
- John Adams, 1819 -

A "sound" banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him.
- J.M. Keynes -

Imprudent banks are supposed to be punished by the marketplace, by going out of business. But the banks were so interdependent that an imprudent bank could cause the collapse of the system.
- "Adam Smith" in Paper Money, 1981

Never before in the history of banking has so much been owed by so few to so few.
- The Economist, June 10, 1978 -

If you see a Swiss banker jump out of the window, jump after him, there's bound to be money in it.
- Voltaire -

If I owe a million dollars, then I am lost. But if I owe fifty billions, the bankers are lost.
- Celso Ming, Brazilian economist, 1980 -

Some unattributed ones I read somewhere and have forgotten, so they may not be correctly worded:

You don't have to make a lot of money to be rich. You just have to convince the banks to give you the money.

On the bailout:
Never has so much been owed by so few to so many.

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