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If Economists Could Manage To Get Themselves Thought Of As Humble, Competent People On A Level With Dentists, That Would Be Splendid.
-John Maynard Keynes
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If Economists Could Manage

John Maynard Keynes
...
If Economists Could Manage To Get Themselves Thought Of As Humble, Competent People On A Level With Dentists, That Would Be Splendid.

Understanding the Quote: "if economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent..."

This quote by John Maynard Keynes reflects deeply on the theme of humble. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Humble, People, Would Be, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how John Maynard Keynes interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes is celebrated for insightful thoughts on humble and people. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Humble
People
Would Be
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The Boom, Not The Slump, Is The Right Time For Austerity At The Treasury.
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Businessmen Have A Different Set Of Delusions From Politicians; And Need, Therefore, Different Handling. They Are, However, Much Milder Than Politicians, At The Same Time Allured And Terrified By The Glare Of Publicity....you Could Do Anything You Like With Them, If You Would Treat Them (even The Big Ones) Not As Wolves And Tigers, But As Domestic Animals By Nature, Even Though They Have Been Badly Brought Up And Not Trained As You Would Wish.
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...by Combining A Popular Hatred Of The Class Of Entrepreneurs With The Blow Already Given To Social Security By The Violent And Arbitrary Disturbance Of Contract,... Governments Are Fast Rendering Impossible A Continuance Of The Social And Economic Order Of The Nineteenth Century.
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Lenin Is Said To Have Declared That The Best Way To Destroy The Capitalist System Was To Debauch The Currency. By A Continuing Process Of Inflation, Governments Can Confiscate, Secretly And Unobserved, An Important Part Of The Wealth Of Their Citizens. By This Method They Not Only Confiscate, But They Confiscate Arbitrarily; And, While The Process Impoverishes Many, It Actually Enriches Some. The Sight Of This Arbitrary Rearrangement Of Riches Strikes Not Only At Security, But At Confidence In The Equity Of The Existing Distribution Of Wealth.
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The Atomic Hypothesis Which Had Worked So Splendidly In Physics Breaks Down In Psychics.
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The Important Thing For Government Is Not To Do Things Which Individuals Are Doing Already, And To Do Them A Little Better Or A Little Worse; But To Do Those Things Which At Present Are Not Done At All.
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If Human Nature Felt No Temptation To Take A Chance There Might Not Be Much Investment Merely As A Result Of Cold Calculation.
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Words Ought To Be A Little Wild, For They Are The Assault Of Thoughts On The Unthinking.
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Like All His Type, Newton Was Wholly Aloof From Women.
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But My Lord, When We Addressed This Issue A Few Years Ago, Didn't You Argue The Other Side?" He Said, "that's True, But When I Get More Evidence I Sometimes Change My Mind. What Do You Do?
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Worldly Wisdom Teaches That It Is Better For Reputation To Fail Conventionally Than To Succeed Unconventionally.
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Galton's Eccentric, Sceptical, Observing, Flashing, Cavalry-leader Type Of Mind Led Him Eventually To Become The Founder Of The Most Important, Significant And, I Would Add, Genuine Branch Of Sociology Which Exists, Namely Eugenics.
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The Old Saying Holds. Owe Your Banker �1000 And You Are At His Mercy; Owe Him �1 Million And The Position Is Reversed.
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The Introduction Of A Substantial Government Transfer Tax On All Transactions Might Prove The Most Serviceable Reform Available,with A View To Mitigating The Predominance Of Speculation In The United States.
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When My Information Changes, I Alter My Conclusions. What Do You Do, Sir?
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Chess Is A Cure For Headaches.
Chess
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The Avoidance Of Taxes Is The Only Intellectual Pursuit That Still Carries Any Reward.
Funny
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It Would Be Foolish, In Forming Our Expectations, To Attach Great Weight To Matters Which Are Very Uncertain.
Expectations
Would Be
Weight
An Investor Who Proposes To Ignore Near-term Market Fluctuations Needs Greater Resources For Safety And Must Not Operate On So Large A Scale, If At All, With Borrowed Money.
Safety
Needs
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Experience Shows That What Happens Is Always The Thing Against Which One Has Not Made Provision In Advance.
Investing
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I Should Have Drunk More Champagne.
Should Have
Drunk
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The Ideas Of Economists And Political Philosophers, Both When They Are Right And When They Are Wrong, Are More Powerful Than Is Generally Understood. Indeed, The World Is Ruled By Little Else.
Powerful
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The Economic Problem...the Problem Of Want And Poverty And The Economic Struggle Between Classes And Nations, Is Nothing But A Frightful Muddle, A Transitory And Unnecessary Muddle.
Struggle
Class
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When The Capital Development Of A Country Becomes A By-product Of The Activities Of A Casino, The Job Is Likely To Be Ill-done
Country
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If The Treasury Were To Fill Old Bottles With Bank-notes, Bury Them At Suitable Depths In Disused Coal-mines Which Are Then Filled Up To The Surface With Town Rubbish, And Leave It To Private Enterprise On Well-tried Principles Of Laissez-faire To Dig The Notes Up Again (the Right To Do So Being Obtained, Of Course, By Tendering For Leases Of The Note-bearing Territory), There Need Be No More Unemployment And, With The Help Of Repercussions, The Real Income Of The Community, And Its Capital Wealth, Would Probably Become A Good Deal Greater Than It Actually Is.
Real
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Digging A Hole
Nothing Can Preserve The Integrity Of Contact Between Individuals, Except A Discretionary Authority In The State To Revise What Has Become Intolerable. The Powers Of Uninterrupted Usury Are Too Great. If The Accretions Of Vested Interests Were To Grow Without Mitigation For Many Generations, Half The Population Would Be No Better Than Slaves To The Other Half.
Integrity
Generations
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The Inhabitant Of London Could Order By Telephone, Sipping His Morning Tea In Bed, The Various Products Of The Whole Earth -- He Could At The Same Time And By The Same Means Adventure His Wealth In The Natural Resources And New Enterprise Of Any Quarter Of The World -- He Could Secure Forthwith, If He Wished, Cheap And Comfortable Means Of Transit To Any Country Or Climate Without Passport Or Other Formality.
Country
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There Is No Subtler, No Surer Means Of Overturning The Existing Basis Of Society Than To Debauch The Currency.
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Obstinacy Can Bring Only A Penalty And No Reward.
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If Economists Could Manage To Get Themselves Thought Of As Humble, Competent People On A Level With Dentists, That Would Be Splendid.
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The Love Of Money As A Possession...will Be Recognised For What It Is, A Somewhat Disgusting Morbidity.
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Professional Investment May Be Likened To Those Newspaper Competitions In Which The Competitors Have To Pick Out The Six Prettiest Faces From A Hundred Photographs, The Prize Being Awarded To The Competitor Whose Choice Most Nearly Corresponds To The Average Preferences Of The Competitors As A Whole.
Average
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It Is Enterprise Which Build And Improves The World's Possessions...if Enterprise Is Afoot, Wealth Accumulates Whatever May Be Happening To Thrift; And If Enterprise Is Asleep, Wealth Decays, Whatever Thrift May Be Doing.
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Canada Is A Place Of Infinite Promise. We Like The People, And If One Ever Had To Emigrate, This Would Be The Destination, Not The U.s.a. The Hills, Lakes And Forests Make It A Place Of Peace And Repose Of The Mind, Such As One Never Finds In The U.s.a.
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Never In History Was There A Method Devised Of Such Efficacy For Setting Each Country's Advantage At Variance With Its Neighbours' As The International Gold (or, Formerly, Silver) Standard.
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Morally And Philosophically I Find Myself In Agreement With Virtually The Whole Of It: And Not Only In Agreement With It, But In Deeply Moved Agreement.
Philosophy
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How Can I Adopt A Creed Which, Preferring The Mud To The Fish, Exalts The Boorish Proletariat Above The Bourgeois And The Intelligentsia Who, With Whatever Faults, Are The Quality In Life And Surely Carry The Seeds Of All Human Advancement?
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To Our Generation Einstein Has Been Made To Become A Double Symbol - A Symbol Of The Mind Travelling In The Cold Regions Of Space, And A Symbol Of The Brave And Generous Outcast, Pure In Heart And Cheerful Of Spirit.
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I Was Suffering From My Chronic Delusion That One Good Share Is Safer Than Ten Bad Ones, And I Am Always Forgetting That Hardly Anyone Else Shares This Particular Delusion.
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Whenever You Save Five Shillings You Put A Man Out Of Work For A Day.
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What An Extraordinary Episode In The Economic Progress Of Man That Age Was Which Came To An End In August, 1914!
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In A Regime Of Free Trade And Free Economic Intercourse It Would Be Of Little Consequence That Iron Lay On One Side Of A Political Frontier, And Labour, Coal, And Blast Furnaces On The Other. But As It Is, Men Have Devised Ways To Impoverish Themselves And One Another; And Prefer Collective Animosities To Individual Happiness.
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The Master-economist Must Possess A Rare Combination Of Gifts. He Must Reach A High Standard In Several Different Directions And Must Combine Talents Not Often Found Together. He Must Be Mathematician, Historian, Statesman, Philosopher - In Some Degree. He Must Understand Symbols And Speak In Words. He Must Contemplate The Particular In Terms Of The General, And Touch Abstract And Concrete In The Same Flight Of Thought. He Must Study The Present In The Light Ofthe Past For The Purposes Of The Future
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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. It Is Necessarily Part Of The Business Of A Banker To Maintain Appearances, And To Confess A Conventional Respectability, Which Is More Than Human. Life-long Practices Of This Kind Make Them The Most Romantic And The Least Realistic Of Men.
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The Biggest Problem Is Not To Let People Accept New Ideas, But To Let Them Forget The Old Ones.
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To Suggest Social Action For The Public Good To The City London Is Like Discussing The Origin Of Species To A Bishop Sixty Years Ago.
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But The Dreams Of Designing Diplomats Do Not Always Prosper, And We Must Trust The Future .
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Well, When I Get New Information, I Rethink My Position. What, Sir, Do You Do With New Information?
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If I Am Right In Supposing It To Be Comparatively Easy To Make Capital-goods So Abundant That The Marginal Efficiency Of Capital Is Zero, This May Be The Most Sensible Way Of Gradually Getting Rid Of Many Of The Objectionable Features Of Capitalism.
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May
I Believe That The Future Will Learn More From The Spirit Of Gesell Than From That Of Marx .
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Spirit
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Perhaps A Day Might Come When There Would Be At Last Be Enough To Go Round, And When Posterity Could Enter Into The Enjoyment Of Our Labors.
Would Be
Might
Lasts
I Do Not Know Which Makes A Man More Conservative - To Know Nothing But The Present, Or Nothing But The Past.
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Men
The Right Remedy For The Trade Cycle Is Not To Be Found In Abolishing Booms And Thus Keeping Us Permanently In A Semi-slump; But In Abolishing Slumps And Thus Keeping Us Permanently In A Quasi-boom.
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When The Final Result Is Expected To Be A Compromise, It Is Often Prudent To Start From An Extreme Position.
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If Farming Were To Be Organised Like The Stock Market, A Farmer Would Sell His Farm In The Morning When It Was Raining, Only To Buy It Back In The Afternoon When The Sun Came Out.
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By A Continuing Process Of Inflation, Government Can Confiscate, Secretly And Unobserved, An Important Part Of The Wealth Of Their Citizens.
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Investing Is An Activity Of Forecasting The Yield Over The Life Of The Asset; Speculation Is The Activity Of Forecasting The Psychology Of The Market.
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When The Accumulation Of Wealth Is No Longer Of High Social Importance, There Will Be Great Changes In The Code Of Morals. We Shall Be Able To Rid Ourselves Of Many Of The Pseudo-moral Principles Which Have Hag-ridden Us For Two Hundred Years, By Which We Have Exulted Some Of The Most Distasteful Of Human Qualities Into The Highest Virtues.
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Once We Allow Ourselves To Be Disobedient To The Test Of An Accountant's Profit, We Have Begun To Change Our Civilization.
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Nor Should The Argument Seem Strange That Taxation May Be So High As To Defeat Its Object, And That, Given Sufficient Time To Gather The Fruits, A Reduction Of Taxation Will Run A Better Chance Than An Increase Of Balancing The Budget.
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I Expect To See The State, Which Is In A Position To Calculate The Marginal Efficiency Of Capital-goods On Long Views And On The Basis Of The General Social Advantage, Taking An Ever Greater Responsibility For Directly Organizing Investments.
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I Find Myself More And More Relying For A Solution Of Our Problems On The Invisible Hand Which I Tried To Eject From Economic Thinking Twenty Years Ago.
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Years
All The Political Parties Alike Have Their Origins In Past Ideas And Not In New Ideas And None More Conspicuously So Than The Marxists .
Party
Past
Ideas
It Is Not The Ownership Of The Instruments Of Production Which It Is Important For The State To Assume. If The State Is Able To Determine The Aggregate Amount Of Resources Devoted To Augmenting The Instruments And The Basic Rate Of Reward To Those Who Own Them, It Will Have Accomplished All That Is Necessary. Moreover, The Necessary Measures Of Socialization Can Be Introduced Gradually And Without A Break In The General Traditions Of Society.
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For At Least Another Hundred Years We Must Pretend To Ourselves And To Every One That Fair Is Foul And Foul Is Fair; For Foul Is Useful And Fair Is Not. Avarice And Usury And Precaution Must Be Our Gods For A Little Longer Still.
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It Is The Long-term Investor...who Will In Practice Come In For The Most Criticism... For It Is The Essence Of His Behavior That He Should Be Eccentric, Unconventional, And Rash In The Eyes Of Average Opinion
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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 Way Along With His Fellows, So That No One Can Really Blame Him.
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It Is Better That A Man Should Tyrannize Over His Bank Balance Than Over His Fellow-citizens.
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In Truth, The Gold Standard Is Already A Barbarous Relic.
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It Is A Good Thing To Make Mistakes So Long As You're Found Out Quickly.
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Long
Good Things
Markets Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent.
Money
Investing
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A Study Of The History Of Opinion Is A Necessary Preliminary To The Emancipation Of The Mind.
History
Mind
Opinion
The Time Has Already Come When Each Country Needs A Considered National Policy About What Size Of Population, Whether Larger Or Smaller Than At Present Or The Same, Is Most Expedient. And Having Settled This Policy, We Must Take Steps To Carry It Into Operation. The Time May Arrive A Little Later When The Community As A Whole Must Pay Attention To The Innate Quality As Well As To The Mere Numbers Of Its Future Members.
Country
Numbers
Eugenics
Most, Probably, Of Our Decisions To Do Something Positive, The Full Consequences Of Which Will Be Drawn Out Over Many Days To Come, Can Only Be Taken As The Result Of Animal Spirits-a Spontaneous Urge To Action Rather Than Inaction, And Not As The Outcome Of A Weighted Average Of Quantitative Benefits Multiplied By Quantitative Probabilities.
Taken
Animal
Average
Gold Is A Relic From A Time When Government's Were Less Trustworthy In These Matters (currency Debasement) Than They Are Now.
Philosophy
Government
Political
Like Odysseus, The President Looked Wiser When He Was Seated.
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Odysseus
Wiser
In Truth, The Gold Standard Is Already A Barbarous Relic. All Of Us, From The Governor Of The Bank Of England Downwards, Are Now Primarily Interested In Preserving The Stability Of Business, Prices, And Employment, And Are Not Likely, When The Choice Is Forced On Us, Deliberately To Sacrifice These To Outworn Dogma, Which Had Its Value Once, Of 3 Pounds, 17 Shill Ings, 10 1/2 Pence Per Ounce. Advocates Of The Ancient Standard Do Not Observe How Remote It Now Is From The Spirit And The Requirements Of The Age. A Regulated Nonmetallic Standard Has Slipped In Unnoticed. It Exists.
Sacrifice
Choices
Age
The Duty Of "saving" Became Nine-tenths Of Virtue And The Growth Of The Cake The Object Of True Religion.
Cake
Growth
Saving
Conservatism Leads Nowhere; It Satisfies No Ideal.
Wise
Conservatism
Ideals
I Am Sure That The Power Of Vested Interests Is Vastly Exaggerated Compared With The Gradual Encroachment Of Ideas.
Ideas
Encroachment
Interest
For My Own Part, I Believe That There Is Social And Psychological Justification For Significant Inequalities Of Incomes And Wealth.
Wisdom
Believe
Income
If You Owe Your Bank A Hundred Pounds, You Have A Problem. But If You Owe A Million, It Has.
Banking
Pounds
Problem
There Is No Intrinsic Reason For The Scarcity Of Capital.
Scarcity
Reason
Capitalism
It Is The Long Term Investor Who Will In Practice Come In For The Most Criticism. For It Is The Essence Of His Behaviour That He Should Be Eccentric, Unconventional And Rash In The Eyes Of The Average Opinion. If He Is Successful, That Will Only Confirm The General Belief In His Rashness; And If In The Short Run He Is Unsuccessful, Which Is Very Likely, He Will Not Receive Much Mercy. Worldly Wisdom Teaches That It Is Better For Reputation To Fail Conventionally Than To Succeed Unconventionally.
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Eye
It Is Preferable To Regard Labour, Including, Of Course, The Personal Services Of The Entrepreneur, And His Assistants, As The Sole Factor Of Production, Operating In A Given Environment Of Technique, Natural Resources, Capital Equipment And Effective Demand. This Is Why We Have Been Able To Take Labour As The Sole Physical Unit Which We Require In Our Economic System, Apart From Units Of Money And Of Time.
Entrepreneur
Technique
Demand
Education: The Inculcation Of The Incomprehensible Into The Indifferent By The Incompetent.
Education
Economics
Indifferent
The Study Of Economics Does Not Seem To Require Any Specialised Gifts Of An Unusually High Order.
Order
Doe
Study
Should Government Refrain From Regulation (taxation), The Worthlessness Of The Money Becomes Apparent And The Fraud Can No Longer Be Concealed.
Government
Taxation
Regulation
If We Aim Deliberately At The Impoverishment Of Central Europe, Vengeance, I Dare Predict, Will Not Limp.
Europe
Vengeance
Dare
It Is Investment, I.e. The Increased Production Of Material Wealth In The Shape Of Capital Goods, Which Alone Increases National Wealth.
Shapes
Wealth
Investment
As Time Goes On, I Get More And More Convinced That The Right Method Of Investment Is To Put Fairly Large Sums Into Enterprises Which One Thinks One Knows Something About And In The Management Of Which One Thoroughly Believes.
Believe
Thinking
Investing
[silvio] Gesell's Chiefwork Is Written In Cool And Scientific Terms, Although It Is Run Through By A More Passionate And Charged Devotion To Social Justice Than Many Think Fit For A Scholar. I Believe That The Future Will Learn More From The Spirit Of Gesell Then From That Of Marx.
Running
Believe
Thinking
I Conceive, Therefore, That A Somewhat Comprehensive Socialisation Of Investment Will Prove The Means Of Securing An Approximation To Full Employment.
Mean
Employment
Investing
Pyramid-building, Earthquakes, Even Wars May Serve To Increase Wealth, If The Education Of Our Statesmen On The Principles Of The Classical Economics Stands In The Way Of Anything Better.
War
Earthquakes
Pyramids
Nevertheless, If We Contemplate A Society With A Somewhat Stable Wage-unit, With National Characteristics Which Determine The Propensity To Consume And The Preference For Liquidity, And With A Monetary System Which Rigidly Links The Quantity Of Money To The Stock Of The Precious Metals, It Will Be Essential For The Maintenance Of Prosperity That The Authorities Should Pay Close Attention To The State Of The Balance Of Trade. For A Favourable Balance, Provided It Is Not Too Large, Will Prove Extremely Stimulating; Whilst An Unfavourable Balance May Soon Produce A State Of Persistent Depression.
Balance
Essentials
Attention
It Is Ideas, Not Vested Interests, Which Are Dangerous For Good Or Evil.
Ideas
Evil
Dangerous
Ideas Shape The Course Of History.
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Life Changing
Carpe Diem
Capitalism Is The Extraordinary Belief That The Nastiest Of Men, For The Nastiest Of Reasons, Will Somehow Work For The Benefit Of Us All.
Peace
Men
Ubuntu
I Believe Myself To Be Writing A Book On Economic Theory Which Will Largely Revolutionize - Not, I Suppose, At Once But In The Course Of The Next Ten Years - The Way The World Thinks About Economic Problems.
Believe
Book
Writing
It Would Not Be Foolish To Contemplate The Possibility Of A Far Greater Progress Still.
Progress
Foolish
Possibility
I Am Trying To Re-shape And Improve My Central Position.
Trying
Shapes
Position
So It Is Not An Accident That The Nazi Lads Vent A Particular Fury Against (einstein). He Does Truly Stand For What They Most Dislike, The Opposite Of The Blond Beast Intellectualist, Individualist, Supernationalist, Pacifist, Inky, Plump... How Should They Know The Glory Of The Free-ranging Intellect And Soft Objective Sympathy To Whom Money And Violence, Drink And Blood And Pomp, Mean Absolutely Nothing?
Mean
Blood
Opposites
... A Speculator Is One Who Runs Risks Of Which He Is Aware And An Investor Is One Who Runs Risks Of Which He Is Unaware.
Running
Risk
Investing
When The Accumulation Of Wealth Is No Longer Of High Social Importance, There Will Be Great Changes In The Code Of Morals.
Wise
Moral
Wealth
We Will Not Have Any More Crashes In Our Time.
Depression
Great Depression
Crash
If You Owe Your Bank Manager A Thousand Pounds, You Are At His Mercy. If You Owe Him A Million Pounds, He Is At Your Mercy.
Bankers
Investing
Pounds
Thus, The Weight Of My Criticism Is Directed Against The Inadequacy Of The Theoretical Foundations Of The Laissez-faire Doctrine Upon Which I Was Brought Up And For Many Years I Taught
Years
Criticism
Foundation
Capitalism Is The Astounding Belief That The Most Wickedest Of Men Will Do The Most Wickedest Of Things For The Greatest Good Of Everyone.
Fun
Business
Men
It Is Generally Agreed That Casinos Should, In The Public Interest, Be Inaccessible And Expensive. And Perhaps The Same Is True Of Stock Exchanges.
Gambling
Casinos
Financial
I Work For A Government I Despise For Ends I Think Criminal.
Thinking
Government
Criminals
Lenin Is Said To Have Declared That The Best Way To Destroy The Capitalistic System Was To Debauch The Currency. . . Lenin Was Certainly Right. There Is No Subtler, No Surer Means Of Overturning The Existing Basis Of Society Than To Debauch The Currency. The Process Engages All The Hidden Forces Of Economic Law On The Side Of Destruction, And Does It In A Manner Which Not One Man In A Million Can Diagnose.
Mean
Men
Law
Speculators May Do No Harm As Bubbles On A Steady Stream Of Enterprise. But The Position Is Serious When Enterprise Becomes A Bubble On A Whirlpool Of Speculation. When The Capital Development Of A Country Becomes A By-product Of The Activities Of A Casino, The Job Is Likely To Be Ill Done.
Country
Jobs
Serious
The Division Of The Spoils Between The Victors Will Also Provide Employment For A Powerful Office, Whose Doorsteps The Greedy Adventurers And Jealous Concession Hunters Of Twenty Or Thirty Nations Will Crowd And Defile.
Powerful
Jealous
Office
This Siren, This Goat-footed Bard, This Half Human Visitor To Our Age The Hag-ridden And Enchanted Woods Of Celtic Antiquity. One Catches In His Company That Flavour Of Final Purposelessness, Inner Responsibility, Existence Outside Or Away From Our Saxon Good And Evil, Mixed With Cunning, Remorselessness, Love Of Power.
Responsibility
Evil
Age
[t]he Theory Of Output As A Whole, Which Is What The Following Book Purports To Provide, Is Much More Easily Adapted To The Conditions Of A Totalitarian State, Than Is The Theory Of Production And Distribution Of A Given Output Produced Under The Conditions Of Free Competition And A Large Measure Of Laissez-faire.
Book
Competition
Liberty
Practical Men Who Believe Themselves To Be Quite Exempt From Any Intellectual Influence, Are Usually The Slaves Of Some Defunct Economist. Madmen In Authority, Who Hear Voices In The Air, Are Distilling Their Frenzy From Some Academic Scribbler Of A Few Years Back
Believe
Men
Air
How Long Will It Be Necessary To Pay City Men So Entirely Out Of Proportion To What Other Servants Of Society Commonly Receive For Performing Social Services Not Less Useful Or Difficult?
Men
Cities
Long
When I Find New Information I Change My Mind; What Do You Do?
Mind
Information
New Information
The Principle Objectives In Life Are Love, The Creation And Enjoyment If Aesthetic Experience, The Pursuit Of Knowledge. Love Comes A Long Way First.
Long
Principles
Way
The Numeric System Was Invented To Help Man To Put Order In The Chaos Of The World.
Men
Order
World
The Difficulty Lies, Not In The New Ideas, But In Escaping The Old Ones, Which Ramify, For Those Brought Up As Most Of Us Have Been, Into Every Corner Of Our Minds.
Education
Fear
Lying
The Class War Will Find Me On The Side Of The Educated Bourgeoisie.
War
Class
Bourgeoisie
Too Large A Proportion Of Recent "mathematical" Economics Are Mere Concoctions, As Imprecise As The Initial Assumptions They Rest On, Which Allow The Author To Lose Sight Of The Complexities And Interdependencies Of The Real World In A Maze Of Pretentious And Unhelpful Symbols.
Real
Sight
Investing
The Glory Of The Nation You Love Is A Desirable End, — But Generally To Be Obtained At Your Neighbor's Expense.
Love Is
Glory
Neighbor
The Political Problem Of Mankind Is To Combine Three Things: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice And Individual Liberty.
Justice
Political
Liberty
Economists Must Leave To Adam Smith Alone The Glory Of The Quarto, Must Pluck The Day, Fling Pamphlets Into The Wind, Write Always Sub Specie Temporis , And Achieve Immortality By Accident, If At All.
Writing
Wind
Glory
When Somebody Persuades Me I Am Wrong, I Change My Mind.
Mind
The Social Object Of Skilled Investment Should Be To Defeat The Dark Forces Of Time And Ignorance Which Envelope Our Future.
Ignorance
Dark
Skills
Most Men Love Money And Security More, And Creation And Construction Less, As They Get Older.
Love
Money
Men
I Feel No Shame At Being Found Still Owning A Share When The Bottom Of The Market Comes…i Would Go Much Further Than That. I Should Say That It Is From Time To Time The Duty Of A Serious Investor To Accept The Depreciation Of His Holdings With Equanimity And Without Reproaching Himself. … An Investor…should Be Aiming Primarily At Long-period Results, And Should Be Solely Judged By These.
Long
Serious
Shame
I Know Of Only Three People Who Really Understand Money. A Professor At Another University. One Of My Students. And A Rather Junior Clerk At The Bank Of England.
People
Clerks
Juniors
The Spectacle Of Modern Investment Markets Has Sometimes Moved Me Towards The Conclusion That To Make The Purchase Of An Investment Permanent And Indissoluble, Like Marriage, Except By Reason Of Death Or Other Grave Cause, Might Be A Useful Remedy For Our Contemporary Evils. For This Would Force The Investor To Direct His Mind To The Long-term Prospects And To Those Only.
Long
Evil
Mind
When The Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
Business
Mind
Facts
As Time Goes On, I Get More And More Convinced That The Right Method In Investment Is To Put Fairly Large Sums Into Enterprises Which One Thinks One Knows Something About And In The Management Of Which One Thoroughly Believes. It Is A Mistake To Think That One Limits One's Risk By Spreading Too Much Between Enterprises About Which One Knows Little And Has No Reason For Special Confidence. . . . One's Knowledge And Experience Are Definitely Limited And There Are Seldom More Than Two Or Three Enterprises At Any Given Time In Which I Personally Feel Myself Entitled To Put Full Confidence.
Mistake
Believe
Thinking
It Has Been Pointed Out Already That No Knowledge Of Probabilities, Less In Degree Than Certainty, Helps Us To Know What Conclusions Are True, And That There Is No Direct Relation Between The Truth Of A Proposition And Its Probability. Probability Begins And Ends With Probability.
Truth
Math
Degrees
Ideas, Knowledge, Art, Hospitality, Travel - These Are Things Which Should In Their Nature Be International. But Let Goods Be Homespun Whenever It Is Reasonably And Conveniently Possible And Above All Let Finance Be Primarily National.
Letting Go
Art
Business
Americans Are Apt To Be Unduly Interested In Discovering What Average Opinion Believes Average Opinion To Be.
Believe
Average
America
Once Doubt Begins It Spreads Rapidly.
Doubt
Spread
The Love Of Money As A Possession-as Distinguished From The Love Of Money As A Means To The Enjoyments And Realities Of Life-will Be Recognized For What It Is, A Somewhat Disgusting Morbidity, One Of Those Semi-criminal, Semi-pathological Propensities Which One Hands Over With A Shudder To The Specialists In Mental Disease
Life
Mean
Reality
In This Autumn Of 1919, In Which I Write, We Are At The Dead Season Of Our Fortunes.
Writing
Autumn
Fortune
A Conventional Valuation Which Is Established As The Outcome Of The Mass Psychology Of A Large Number Of Ignorant Individuals Is Liable To Change Violently As The Result Of A Sudden Fluctuation Of Opinion Due To Factors Which Do Not Really Make Much Difference To The Prospective Yield; Since There Will Be No Strong Roots Of Conviction To Hold It Steady.
Strong
Roots
Differences
The Friends Of Gold Will Have To Be Extremely Wise And Moderate If They Are To Avoid A Revolution.
Wise
Gold
Revolution
It Economics Is A Method Rather Than A Doctrine, An Apparatus Of The Mind, A Technique Of Thinking Which Helps Its Possessor To Draw Correct Conclusions.
Thinking
Mind
Doctrine
They Offer Me Neither Food Nor Drink - Intellectual Nor Spiritual Consolation... [conservatism] Leads Nowhere; It Satisfies No Ideal; It Conforms To No Intellectual Standard, It Is Not Safe, Or Calculated To Preserve From The Spoilers That Degree Of Civilization Which We Have Already Attained.
Spiritual
Civilization
Intellectual
The Importance Of Money Flows From It Being A Link Between The Present And The Future.
Money
Business
Future
The Day Is Not Far Off When The Economic Problem Will Take The Back Seat Where It Belongs, And The Arena Of The Heart And The Head Will Be Occupied Or Reoccupied, By Our Real Problems - The Problems Of Life And Of Human Relations, Of Creation And Behavior And Religion.
Real
Heart
Religion
The Key To Selecting The Winner Isn't Choosing The Face You Think Is The Most Beautiful But Rather The Face Other People Will Pick
Beautiful
Thinking
Keys
Logic , Like Lyrical Poetry , Is No Employment For The Middle-aged
Employment
Logic
Lyrical
The Expected Never Happens; It Is The Unexpected Always.
Investing
Unexpected
Expected
If, However, A Government Refrains From Regulations And Allows Matters To Take Their Course, Essential Commodities Soon Attain A Level Of Price Out Of The Reach Of All But The Rich, The Worthlessness Of The Money Becomes Apparent, And The Fraud Upon The Public Can Be Concealed No Longer.
Money
Government
Deception
Adam Smith And Malthus And Ricardo ! There Is Something About These Three Figures To Evoke More Than Ordinary Sentiments From Us Their Children In The Spirit.
Children
Ordinary
Three
One Blames Politicians, Not For Inconsistency But For Obstinacy. They Are The Interpreters, Not The Masters, Of Our Fate. It Is Their Job, In Fact, To Register The Fact Accompli.
Jobs
Fate
Politics
There Is No Harm In Being Sometimes Wrong - Especially If One Is Promptly Found Out.
Sometimes
Found
Programming
Government Machinery Has Been Described As A Marvelous Labor Saving Device Which Enables Ten Men To Do The Work Of One.
Men
Liberty
Saving
The Classical Theorists Resemble Euclidean Geometers In A Non-euclidean World Who, Discovering That In Experience Straight Lines Apparently Parallel Often Meet, Rebuke The Lines For Not Keeping Straight As The Only Remedy For The Unfortunate Collisions Which Are Occurring. Yet, In Truth, There Is No Remedy Except To Throw Over The Axiom Of Parallels And To Work Out A Non-euclidean Geometry.
Work Out
World
Lines
Those, Who Are Strongly Wedded To What I Shall Call 'the Classical Theory', Will Fluctuate, I Expect, Between A Belief That I Am Quite Wrong And A Belief That I Am Saying Nothing New. It Is For Others To Determine If Either Of These Or The Third Alternative Is Right.
Learning
Power
History
Economics Is A Very Dangerous Science.
Economics
Dangerous
The Engine Which Drives Enterprise Is Not Thrift, But Profit.
Profit
Enterprise
Thrift
I Think That Capitalism, Wisely Managed, Can Probably Be Made More Efficient For Attaining Economic Ends Than Any Alternative System Yet In Sight, But That In Itself Is In Many Ways Extremely Objectionable.
Thinking
Sight
Alternatives
But Whilst There May Be Intrinsic Reasons For The Scarcity Of Land, There Are No Intrinsic Reasons For The Scarcity Of Capital.
Land
Scarcity
May
I'd Rather Be Vaguely Right Than Precisely Wrong.
Economics
This Long Run Is A Misleading Guide To Current Affairs. In The Long Run We Are All Dead. Economists Set Themselves Too Easy, Too Useless A Task If In Tempestuous Seasons They Can Only Tell Us That When The Storm Is Long Past The Ocean Is Flat Again.
Death
Running
Ocean
I Do Not Mean To Impugn The Social Justice And Social Expediency Of The Redistribution Of Incomes Aimed At By N.i.r.a. And By The Various Schemes For Agricultural Restriction. The Latter, In Particular, I Should Strongly Support In Principle. But Too Much Emphasis On The Remedial Value Of A Higher Price-level As An Object In Itself May Lead To Serious Misapprehension As To The Part Which Prices Can Play In The Technique Of Recovery. The Stimulation Of Output By Increasing Aggregate Purchasing Power Is The Right Way To Get Prices Up; And Not The Other Way Round.
Mean
Recovery
Play
Unlike Physics, For Example, Such Parts Of The Bare Bones Of Economic Theory As Are Expressible In Mathematical Form Are Extremely Easy Compared With The Economic Interpretation Of The Complex And Incompletely Known Facts Of Experience, And Lead One A Very Little Way Towards Establishing Useful Results.
Example
Littles
Way
The Book, As It Stands, Seems To Me To Be One Of The Most Frightful Muddles I Have Ever Read, With Scarcely A Sound Proposition In It Beginning With Page 45 [hayek Provided Historical Background Up To Page 45; After That Came His Theoretical Model], And Yet It Remains A Book Of Some Interest, Which Is Likely To Leave Its Mark On The Mind Of The Reader. It Is An Extraordinary Example Of How, Starting With A Mistake, A Remorseless Logician Can End Up In Bedlam.
Mistake
Book
Historical
The Markets Are Moved By Animal Spirits, And Not By Reason.
Animal
Spirit
Reason
Nothing Mattered Except States Of Mind, Chiefly Our Own.
Pregnancy
Intelligent
Mind
It Is Better That A Man Should Tyrannize Over His Bank Balance Than Over His Fellow-citizens And Whilst The Former Is Sometimes Denounced As Being But A Means To The Latter, Sometimes At Least It Is An Alternative.
Money
Mean
Men
The Power To Become Habituated To His Surroundings And Therefore To No Longer Be Grateful For What Is Good In It Is A Marked Characteristic Of Mankind And Needs To Be Fought Against If A Person Is To Be Happy.
Gratitude
Grateful
Needs
Newton Was Not The First Of The Age Of Reason, He Was The Last Of The Magicians.
Science
Age
Lasts
To Suppose That Safety-first Consists In Having A Small Gamble In A Large Number Of Different Companies Where I Have No Information To Reach A Good Judgment, As Compared With A Substantial Stake In A Company Where One's Information Is Adequate, Strikes Me As A Travesty Of Investment Policy.
Numbers
Safety
Different
One's Knowledge And Experience Are Definitely Limited And There Are Seldom More Than Two Or Three Enterprises At Any Given Time In Which I Personally Feel Myself Entitled To Put Full Confidence.
Two
Three
Investing
The Immense Accumulations Of Fixed Capital Which, To The Great Benefit Of Mankind, Were Built Up During The Half Century Before The War, Could Never Have Come About In A Society Where Wealth Was Divided Equitably.
Wisdom
War
Benefits
The Great Events Of History Are Often Due To Secular Changes In The Growth Of Population And Other Fundamental Economic Causes, Which, Escaping By Their Gradual Character The Notice Of Contemporary Observers, Are Attributed To The Follies Of Statesmen Or The Fanaticism Of Atheists .
Atheist
Character
Escaping
Everything Is Always Decided For Reasons Other Than The Real Merits Of The Case
Real
Merit
Reason
By This Means (fractional Reserve Banking) Government May Secretly And Unobserved, Confiscate The Wealth Of The People, And Not One Man In A Million Will Detect The Theft.
Mean
Men
People
Perhaps It Is Historically True That No Order Of Society Ever Perishes Save By Its Own Hand.
Hands
Order
I Don't Feel The Least Humble Before The Vastness Of The Heavens.
Humble
Heaven
Vastness
The Outstanding Faults Of The Economic Society In Which We Live Are Its Failure To Provide For Full Employment And Its Arbitrary And Inequitable Distribution Of Wealth And Incomes.
Income
Employment
Arbitrary
It's Not Bringing In The New Ideas That's So Hard; It's Getting Rid Of The Old Ones.
Ideas
New Ideas
Hard
All Production Is For The Purpose Of Ultimately Satisfying A Consumer.
Purpose
Consumers
Satisfying
He Had One Illusion - France; And One Disillusion - Mankind, Including Frenchmen.
France
Illusion
Economics
Successful Investing Is Anticipating The Anticipations Of Others.
Wise
Successful
Investing
The Businessman Is Only Tolerable So Long As His Gains Can Be Held To Bear Some Relation To What, Roughly And In Some Sense, His Activities Have Contributed To Society.
Long
Gains
Bears
Investment Based On Genuine Long-term Expectations Is So Difficult Today As To Be Scarcely Practicable.
Long
Expectations
Investing
The Power To Become Habituated To His Surroundings Is A Marked Characteristic Of Mankind.
Characteristics
Surroundings
Mankind
The Destruction Of The Inducement To Invest By An Excessive Liquidity-preference Was The Outstanding Evil, The Prime Impediment To The Growth Of Wealth, In The Ancient And Medieval Worlds.
Evil
Growth
World
If We Consistently Act On The Optimistic Hypothesis, This Hypothesis Will Tend To Be Realised; Whilst By Acting On The Pessimistic Hypothesis We Can Keep Ourselves For Ever In The Pit Of Want.
Optimistic
Acting
Pits
Economic Privation Proceeds By Easy Stages, And So Long As Men Suffer It Patiently The Outside World Cares Little.
Men
Long
Suffering
It Is Impossible That The Intention Of The Entrepreneur Who Has Borrowed In Order To Increase Investment Can Become Effective (except In Substitution For Investment By Other Entrepreneurs Which Would Have Occurred Otherwise) At A Faster Rate Than The Public Decide To Increase Their Savings
Philosophy
Order
Entrepreneur
The Central Principle Of Investment Is To Go Contrary To The General Opinion, On The Grounds That If Everyone Agreed About Its Merits, The Investment Is Inevitably Too Dear And Therefore Unattractive.
Principles
Unattractive
Merit
I Can't Remember My Telephone Number, But I Know It Was In The High Numbers.
Numbers
Telephones
Remember
The Treasury Could Fill Old Bottles With Banknotes And Bury Them..and Leave It To Private Enterprises On Well-tried Principles Of Laissez-faire To Dig The Notes Up Again.
Principles
Bottles
Laissez Faire
I See, Therefore, The Rentier Aspect Of Capitalism As A Transitional Phase Which Will Disappear When It Has Done Its Work. And With The Disappearance Of Its Rentier Aspect Much Else In It Besides Will Suffer A Sea-change. It Will Be, Moreover, A Great Advantage Of The Order Of Events Which I Am Advocating, That The Euthanasia Of The Rentier, Of The Functionless Investor, Will Be Nothing Sudden, Merely A Gradual But Prolonged Continuance Of What We Have Seen Recently In Great Britain, And Will Need No Revolution.
Wisdom
Order
Sea
Of The Maxims Of Orthodox Finance None, Surely, Is More Anti-social Than The Fetish Of Liquidity, The Doctrine Of That It Is A Positive Virtue On The Part Of Investment Institutions To Concentrate Their Resources Upon The Holding Of 'liquid' Securities. It Forgets That There Is No Such Thing As Liquidity Of Investment For The Community As A Whole.
Community
Liquid
Doctrine
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