Background Image

...

Only Institutions That Go About The Old-fashioned Business Of Taking In Deposits From Customer A And Lending Them Out To Customer B Should Be Called Banks. The Rest Should Call Themselves What They Are. 'parlors' Would Be Appropriate, Or 'dens' - Words More Suitable To Venerable Betting Pursuits.

-Graydon Carter

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Only Institutions That Go

Graydon Carter

...

Only Institutions That Go About The Old-fashioned Business Of Taking In Deposits From Customer A And Lending Them Out To Customer B Should Be Called Banks. The Rest Should Call Themselves What They Are. 'parlors' Would Be Appropriate, Or 'dens' - Words More Suitable To Venerable Betting Pursuits.

Views: 14

Topic

More From Graydon Carter

There Are Similarities Between Being An Editor And A Tailor. Tailors Have A Vast Supply Of Fabrics, Buttons And Thread At Their Disposal And Put It Together To Make A Whole. That's What An Editor Does - Looks At Society At A Given Time And Pulls Together The Interesting Aspects Into A Single Issue Each Month.

The Fact Is, Unlike A Lot Of Writers, I Credit The People Who Help Me. A Lot Of Writers Out There Have A Ton Of Researchers And They Don't Get Credited In The Book.

Financial Institutions Like To Call What They Do Trading. Let's Be Honest. It's Not Trading; It's Betting.

Somewhere Along The Way, New York Became All About Money. Or Rather, It Was Always About Money, But It Wasn't All About Money, If You Know What I Mean. New York's Not Geneva Or Zurich Yet, But We're Certainly Heading In That Direction. London Is, Too.

The Greatest Thing That Prepared Me For Editing Vanity Fair Was Having Four Kids Because You Just Learn To Subjugate Your Ego With The Greater Interest In Mind.

Many Of The Architects Of The Vietnam War Became Near Pariahs As They Spent The Remainder Of Their Lives In The Futile Quest To Explain Away Their Decisions At The Time.

Cod Is More Responsible For The Discovery Of The New World Than Almost Anything Else. Drove The Vikings Across The North Atlantic, And John Cabot Discovered America By Looking For Cod.

I Think The Movie Business Is In Trouble. It's All Movies That You've Seen Before. Everything's A Remake; They Want Things That Are Familiar Rather Than Things That Surprise You.

As Any Editor Will Tell You, Startling Newsroom Revelations Are Generally Met With Queries About Where The Information Came From And How The Reporter Got It. Seriously Startling Revelations Are Followed By The Vetting Of Libel Lawyers.

Many Men Think They're Playboys But They Invariably Land Wide Of The Mark. Surrounding Yourself With Champagne, Fast Friends And Paid Escorts Is The Very Definition Of The Word 'loser'.

Whatever Age We Are Is The Age We’ve Always Been.

The Fact Is That Movie Stars Are As Insecure As The Rest Of Us - If Not More So. Many Live In A Luxurious Bubble In Which Their Best Friends Are Their Trainer, Their Hairdresser, Their Publicist, And Their Kabbalah Instructor.

I Don't Do Any Research. It's All About Gut. Editing - It's Always About Gut.

My Hunch Is That Pop Culture Began To Stagnate The Moment Americans Started To Love The Past More Than They Did The Future.

Issues Such As Transparency Often Boil Down To Which Side Of -pick A Number- 40 You're On. Under 40, And Transparency Is Generally Considered A Good Thing For Society. Over 40, And One Generally Chooses Privacy Over Transparency. On Every Side Of This Issue, Hypocrisy Abounds.

I Don't Think You Can Be A Credible, Modern Candidate For President Without Making The Environment A Major Part Of Your Platform.

It Could Fairly Be Said That America, During The Bush Years, Has Entered An Age Of Denial - Arguably The First Stage Of A Nation's Decline.

I Walk Down The Street And People Don't Go, 'my God, There He Is.' I Lead As Normal A Life As You Can Lead In New York City.

Moping Is An Unattractive Attribute In A Man.

As A Father Of Five, I Sometimes Feel I've Spent A Lifetime Watching Disney Musicals.

You Lose Manufacturing Jobs, You Rarely Ever Get Them Back Again.

People Think They Have To Be Ambitious. But At A Certain Age, All You Want Is To Be Around Nice, Decent People.

Magazine Stories, The Best Ones Anyway, Are Generally A Combination Of Three Elements: Access, Narrative, And Disclosure.

Conservatives Define Themselves More By Their Hatred Of Liberals Than Anything Else, And, Conversely, Liberals By Their Distaste For Conservatives.

As You Get Older And Fatter, Good Clothes Can Hide A Lot.

Everything I Love About America Is Fragile.

I Might Wear A Dinner Jacket Once A Year To Our Oscar Party - That's A Big Thing - But I Don't Go To Parties. I'm Social But I'm Not A Socialite Person.

Most Of Us Have Learned The Hard Way That There Are Very Few Things You Can Absolutely Count On In Life.

Former Vice President Al Gore Has Devoted His Post-administration Years To A Mission To Tell The World About Global Warming. It's Funny, But In His Civilian Life Gore Has Discovered The Voice That Voters Had Trouble Hearing When He Ran For President In 2000. The Voice He Has Found Is Clear, Impassioned, And Moving.

Stationery Is Addictive. I Get Mine Made In Paris At Benetton, And Writing On It Gives Me A Strange Thrill.

Fashion Is A Dangerous Road To Go Down. Anybody Who Is Going To Have Children Later In Life Had Best Not Be Too Fashionable Because The Photos Will Come Back To Haunt Them.

In This Age Of 24-7 Headlines, The Term 'newsweekly' Seems Almost Quaint.

We Really Care About Photography At Vanity Fair.

I Think The Absence Of Socks On Men Wearing Suits And Brogues Is A Problem. They'll Live To Regret That.

The Shelf Life Of A Movie Actor Or Actress Is So Short, It's Like Milk.

I Think Being Canadian Helps You As A Journalist In America, Because You're Sort Of On The Outside Watching This Big Party Going On, And You're Sort Of Taking Mental Notes As It Goes On. I Think If You're In The Party The Whole Time, You Don't Notice It As Much. And I Think Canadians Are Very Good Observers Of American Culture.

History Is Nothing If Not An Epic Tale Of Missed Opportunities.

It's No Surprise That The Bush Administration's Bullying Swagger And Blithe Ignorance Have Caused Much Of The Muslim World To Hold The U.s. In Rock-bottom Regard.

In 2004, I Wrote 'what We've Lost,' A Book About The Bush Administration. It Sold Only Reasonably Well, In Part, I Think, Because The Book Was A Horrific Downer, An Unrelenting Account Of The Administration's Actions, Bungles, Deceptions, Half-truths, Untruths, And Downright Corruptions.

Branding Experts Believe That Just Because They Have Rethought A Company's Image Or Name, The Rest Of Us Will Automatically Fall In Line.

We Admire Elephants In Part Because They Demonstrate What We Consider The Finest Human Traits: Empathy, Self-awareness, And Social Intelligence. But The Way We Treat Them Puts On Display The Very Worst Of Human Behavior.

I Have Always Thought You Could Take The Measure Of A Man By His Sports Manners - That Is To Say, The Way In Which He Conducts Himself On The Playing Field, Or Even Over A Game Of Chess Or Cards.

It's Estimated That Across Africa 100 Elephants Are Killed For Their Tusks Every Day. It Takes Nothing More Than Simple Math To Get To What That Adds Up To In A Year, And It's A Distressing Figure.

Water-boarding Can Result In Damage To The Lungs And The Brain, As Well As Long-term Psychological Trauma.

Life Is All About Seating And Lighting.

Take A Random Selection Of Photographs Of America In 2012 And 2002 And 1992 And, Except For The Skinny Jeans And The Porkpie Hats, You'll Be Hard-pressed To Tell The Years In Which The Pictures Were Taken.

It Could Safely Be Said That Iraqis Are Dying At A Faster Clip Since The American-led Invasion And Occupation Than They Did During The Last Decade Of Saddam Hussein's Rule.

Every Minute You Invest In Kids You Get Back Four Times Over.

In An Age When All That Was Old Seems New Again, Bernard Devoto's The Hour Couldn't Have Made A More Timely Reappearance. This Book Reminds Me Of One Of The Joys Of Being An Adult-cocktail Hour!

The Danger Of Leaving Overwhelming Wealth And Power In The Grasp Of A Small Minority Is A Lesson That Leaders Such As Ousted Tunisian President Zine El-abidine Ben Ali And Deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Have Learned A Little Too Late, As The Demonstrations Across The Arab World Indicate.

Television Has The Obvious Benefits Of Regularity And Intimacy.

To A Young Kid Growing Up In Canada, America Seemed To Be Crazy About The Future; Dazzled By It.

Memory Is Often - Perhaps Usually - A Distorting Lens: What We Think We Remember Isn't The Way It Was At All. It's What We'd Like To Remember.

My Suggestion To Newspapers Everywhere Is To Give The Public A Reason To Read Them Again. So Here's An Idea: Get On A Big Story With Widespread Public Appeal, Devote Your Best Resources To It, Say A Quiet Prayer, And Swing For The Fences.

Those Who Remember New York In The 1970s, As I Do, Look Back On A City That Had Hit A Very Rough Patch - Decaying, Bankrupt, And Crime-ridden. But Fun.

You Know, I Used To Warm The Thermometer On The Light Bulb... I Was Really Good At Being Sick. I Could Forge My Mother's Signature On A Sick Note So Well I Was Hardly Ever At School.

Every Man In The Back Of Their Minds Would Like To Own A Bar Or A Racehorse.

There Aren't Any Looks Or Customs I Wish Would Come Back. Today Almost Anything Goes. Culture Constantly Devours The Past So There's Not Much That's Missing.

Christopher Hitchens Was A Wit, A Charmer, And A Troublemaker, And To Those Who Knew Him Well, He Was A Gift From - Dare I Say It - God.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Looks In The Mirror And Sees A Playboy Of The Old School. And Men Such As Dominique Strauss-kahn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, And Charlie Sheen No Doubt Look At Berlusconi And Think, 'role Model!' Women, Of Course, Know Otherwise. They See Him As An Aging, Pathetic Buffoon.

In Less Than A Year, The Bush Administration Will Strut Out Of Office, Leaving The Country In Roughly The Same Condition A Toddler Leaves A Diaper.

Only Institutions That Go About The Old-fashioned Business Of Taking In Deposits From Customer A And Lending Them Out To Customer B Should Be Called Banks. The Rest Should Call Themselves What They Are. 'parlors' Would Be Appropriate, Or 'dens' - Words More Suitable To Venerable Betting Pursuits.

I Try To Look After The Really Small Things And The Really Big Things, And Delegate The Stuff In Between.

After The Collapse Of Wall Street In The 1920s, The Culture Stopped Being All About Money, And The Country Survived And Ultimately Flourished.

Arrogance, Ignorance, And Incompetence. Not A Pretty Cocktail Of Personality Traits In The Best Of Situations. No Sirree. Not A Pretty Cocktail In An Office-mate And Not A Pretty Cocktail In A Head Of State. In Fact, In A Leader, It's A Lethal Cocktail.

Where Past Generations Had Film Cameras, Scrapbooks, Notebooks, And That Part Of The Brain Which Stores Memories, We Now Have A Smartphone App For Every Conceivable Recording Need. The Thing Is, All That Time You Spend Logging And Then Curating The Quotidian Aspects Of Your Daily Life Is Time Taken Away From Actually Doing Things.

Trending Author

Christopher Lasch

Roger Nash Baldwin

Category