#crisis

All three are hip-deep in midlife, when the eyes go and the waistline spreads and the city on the hill that shone so brightly in youth turns out to be more like a semi-incorporated town in the middle of a garbage strike. An age when a person can feel not so much himself as an inexplicably inferior version of himself. ↗

— Mary McNamara

#age

Hedge funds have made massive leveraged credit bets, knowing that their upside is billions in fees and their downside is millions in fees. ↗

— Janet M. Tavakoli

#finance #financial-crisis #hedge-funds #structured-finance #business

In adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and, let us hope, we remember how to change back. ↗

— Brian Herbert

#stress #change

The banana flavour of his accidental conception, and the banana theme of his accidental death, now all seemed to conspire against him and rather suggest the universe, Mr Fate or whoever did have some sort of master plan after all. Despite all his earlier conjecturing, maybe the universe, Mr Fate or whoever was laughing its fat and meddling head at him. The outlandish evidence did seem to speak for itself, truly suggesting a mocking narrative devised by some mischievous author because quite simply a banana condom had brought Midnight into the world and a banana skin had seen him out. Putting those two seeming truths together, Midnight was once again forced to ask such confused and searching questions like: What is this place, where am I heading? And what’s the deal with all the ruddy bananas? ↗

— Tom Conrad

#chance #conception #fate #ghosts #midnight-merlot

Argentine political life is like the life of an ant community or an African forest tribe: full of events, full of crisis and deaths, but life is always cyclical, and the year ends as it begins. ↗

— V. S. Naipaul

#always #ant #begins #community #crisis

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. ↗

— Rahm Emanuel

#could #crisis #go #i #mean

One way and another I was having a ball - playing gigs, jamming and listening to fine musicians. Then came a crisis at home. My stepfather fell sick, and it meant I had to support the family. ↗

— Mary Lou Williams

#ball #came #crisis #family #fell

Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things. ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#civilization #crisis #debt #enormous #environmental

By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate... ...I mean, why do people live so long? What could be the difference between death at fifty-five and death at sixty-five or seventy-five or eighty-five? Those extra years... what benefit could they possibly have? Why do we go on living even though nothing new happens, nothing new is learned, and nothing new is transmitted? At fifty-five, your story's pretty much over. ↗

— Douglas Coupland

#fulfillment #life #mid-life-crisis #quarter-life-crisis #age

In a normal time, I don't think economic policy makes a large difference one way or another. But in times of crisis it makes all the difference in the world. ↗

— Mark Zandi

#crisis #difference #economic #economic policy #i