#finance

In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in — or more precisely not in — the country’s businesses and banks. This inventory — it should perhaps be called the bezzle — amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle. In good times people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful. But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more. Under these circumstances the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression all this is reversed. Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous. Commercial morality is enormously improved. The bezzle shrinks. … Just as the boom accelerated the rate of growth, so the crash enormously advanced the rate of discovery. Within a few days, something close to a universal trust turned into something akin to universal suspicion. Audits were ordered. Strained or preoccupied behavior was noticed. Most important, the collapse in stock values made irredeemable the position of the employee who had embezzled to play the market. He now confessed. ↗

— John Kenneth Galbraith

#crime #embezzlement #finance #money

It is bad policy to regulate everything... where things may better regulate themselves and can be better promoted by private exertions; but it is no less bad policy to let those things alone which can only be promoted by interfering social power. ↗

— Friedrich List

#alone #bad #better #everything #exertions

I got IRS records to finance what I wanted to do. ↗

— Penelope Spheeris

#got #i #irs #records #wanted

Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth. ↗

— Alfred Marshall

#capital #devoted #further #obtaining #part

I feel sorry sometimes for these sportsmen and women who put in just as much effort as the footballers. For example, athletes train at least as hard as footballers but have to be happy if they can earn enough to finance a decent education. ↗

— Angela Merkel

#be happy #decent #earn #education #effort

The monarchy is foremost a business, and it's important to them that the British public continue to finance the excessive luxurious lifestyles of the now quite enormous, wasteful and useless 'royal' family. I find it very sad. ↗

— Steven Patrick Morrissey

#business #continue #enormous #excessive #family

My dad was a baggage handler at Heathrow and careful with money. He worked hard and had three jobs when I was young. I wish I'd inherited his care for money. Sadly, I've grown up to be rather scatty when it comes to finances. ↗

— Gary Numan

#care #careful #comes #dad #finances

The government is determined to continue the process of fiscal consolidation and structural reform in order to secure sound public finances and improve the country's international competitiveness. ↗

— Lucas Papademos

#consolidation #continue #country #determined #finances

In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed. ↗

— John Rawls

#constant #finance #function #money #paralyzed

Gold and silver, like other commodities, have an intrinsic value, which is not arbitrary, but is dependent on their scarcity, the quantity of labour bestowed in procuring them, and the value of the capital employed in the mines which produce them. ↗

— David Ricardo

#arbitrary #bestowed #capital #commodities #dependent