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When My Information Changes, I Alter My Conclusions. What Do You Do, Sir?
-John Maynard Keynes
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When My Information Changes,

John Maynard Keynes
...
When My Information Changes, I Alter My Conclusions. What Do You Do, Sir?

Understanding the Quote: "when my information changes, i alter my conclusions. what do you do,..."

This quote by John Maynard Keynes reflects deeply on the theme of information. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Information, Conclusion, 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 information and conclusion. 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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Conclusion
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Long Run Is A Misleading Guide To Current Affairs. In The Long Run We Are All Dead.
Running
Long
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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.
Animal
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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.
Civilization
Tests
Profit
Logic , Like Lyrical Poetry , Is No Employment For The Middle-aged
Employment
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Lyrical
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
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
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
God Has Arrived. I Met Him On The 5:15 Train.
Mets
Train
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.
Mistake
Thinking
Risk
The Duty Of "saving" Became Nine-tenths Of Virtue And The Growth Of The Cake The Object Of True Religion.
Cake
Growth
Saving
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
Economic Privation Proceeds By Easy Stages, And So Long As Men Suffer It Patiently The Outside World Cares Little.
Men
Long
Suffering
Education: The Inculcation Of The Incomprehensible Into The Indifferent By The Incompetent.
Education
Economics
Indifferent
In The Long Run We Are All Dead.
Funny
Death
Running
The Importance Of Money Flows From It Being A Link Between The Present And The Future.
Money
Business
Future
When Somebody Persuades Me I Am Wrong, I Change My Mind.
Mind
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
But The Dreams Of Designing Diplomats Do Not Always Prosper, And We Must Trust The Future .
Dream
Design
Diplomats
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
Resources
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.
Eugenics
Leader
Mind
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
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
Morning
Peace
There Is No Intrinsic Reason For The Scarcity Of Capital.
Scarcity
Reason
Capitalism
The Markets Are Moved By Animal Spirits, And Not By Reason.
Animal
Spirit
Reason
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.
Men
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Long
The Engine Which Drives Enterprise Is Not Thrift, But Profit.
Profit
Enterprise
Thrift
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
By A Continuing Process Of Inflation, Government Can Confiscate, Secretly And Unobserved, An Important Part Of The Wealth Of Their Citizens.
Money
Power
Government
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 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
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Bears
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
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
Eye
Average
Essence
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
All Production Is For The Purpose Of Ultimately Satisfying A Consumer.
Purpose
Consumers
Satisfying
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.
Running
Independent
Eye
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
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
Well, When I Get New Information, I Rethink My Position. What, Sir, Do You Do With New Information?
Atheism
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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.
Blow
Government
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When The Final Result Is Expected To Be A Compromise, It Is Often Prudent To Start From An Extreme Position.
Finals
Prudent
Compromise
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
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.
Business
Yield
Psychology
Whenever You Save Five Shillings You Put A Man Out Of Work For A Day.
Education
Laughter
Inspiration
The Boom, Not The Slump, Is The Right Time For Austerity At The Treasury.
Slumps
Investing
Austerity
I Should Have Drunk More Champagne.
Should Have
Drunk
Champagne
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.
Men
Individual Happiness
Iron
There Is No Harm In Being Sometimes Wrong - Especially If One Is Promptly Found Out.
Sometimes
Found
Programming
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
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
Investment Based On Genuine Long-term Expectations Is So Difficult Today As To Be Scarcely Practicable.
Long
Expectations
Investing
Perhaps It Is Historically True That No Order Of Society Ever Perishes Save By Its Own Hand.
Hands
Order
The Political Problem Of Mankind Is To Combine Three Things: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice And Individual Liberty.
Justice
Political
Liberty
The Power To Become Habituated To His Surroundings Is A Marked Characteristic Of Mankind.
Characteristics
Surroundings
Mankind
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
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
There Is No Subtler, No Surer Means Of Overturning The Existing Basis Of Society Than To Debauch The Currency.
Mean
Economics
Currency
If Economists Could Manage To Get Themselves Thought Of As Humble, Competent People On A Level With Dentists, That Would Be Splendid.
Humble
People
Would Be
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.
Zero
Supposing That
May
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
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.
Running
Investing
Taxation
The Atomic Hypothesis Which Had Worked So Splendidly In Physics Breaks Down In Psychics.
Psychics
Physics
Breaking Down
Like All His Type, Newton Was Wholly Aloof From Women.
Newton
Type
Aloof
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.
Country
Gold
Investing
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
I Am Trying To Re-shape And Improve My Central Position.
Trying
Shapes
Position
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
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
If We Aim Deliberately At The Impoverishment Of Central Europe, Vengeance, I Dare Predict, Will Not Limp.
Europe
Vengeance
Dare
Everything Is Always Decided For Reasons Other Than The Real Merits Of The Case
Real
Merit
Reason
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
It Is A Good Thing To Make Mistakes So Long As You're Found Out Quickly.
Mistake
Long
Good Things
Americans Are Apt To Be Unduly Interested In Discovering What Average Opinion Believes Average Opinion To Be.
Believe
Average
America
I Work For A Government I Despise For Ends I Think Criminal.
Thinking
Government
Criminals
... 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
I Conceive, Therefore, That A Somewhat Comprehensive Socialisation Of Investment Will Prove The Means Of Securing An Approximation To Full Employment.
Mean
Employment
Investing
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.
Heart
Our Generation
Space
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.
Lakes
People
Promise
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
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
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
Newton Was Not The First Of The Age Of Reason. He Was The Last Of The Magicians, The Last Of The Babylonians And Sumerians, The Last Great Mind That Looked Out On The Visible And Intellectual World With The Same Eyes As Those Who Began To Build Our Intellectual Inheritance Rather Less Than 10,000 Years Ago.
Eye
Science
Years
Nothing Mattered Except States Of Mind, Chiefly Our Own.
Pregnancy
Intelligent
Mind
We Will Not Have Any More Crashes In Our Time.
Depression
Great Depression
Crash
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
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.
Bankers
Sound
Investing
The Expected Never Happens; It Is The Unexpected Always.
Investing
Unexpected
Expected
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
If Human Nature Felt No Temptation To Take A Chance There Might Not Be Much Investment Merely As A Result Of Cold Calculation.
Business
Temptation
Might
What An Extraordinary Episode In The Economic Progress Of Man That Age Was Which Came To An End In August, 1914!
Men
August
History
Dangerous Acts Can Be Done Safely In A Community Which Thinks And Feels Rightly, Which Would Be The Way To Hell If They Were Executed By Those Who Think And Feel Wrongly.
Thinking
Community
Would Be
I Wish I'd Drunk More Champagne.
Bad Ass
Drunk
Alcohol
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
Book
Agreement
Experience Shows That What Happens Is Always The Thing Against Which One Has Not Made Provision In Advance.
Investing
Made
Provision
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.
Years
Cities
Bishops
The Biggest Problem Is Not To Let People Accept New Ideas, But To Let Them Forget The Old Ones.
Ideas
People
Problem
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
Freedom
Ideas
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.
Philosophy
Responsibility
Views
The Idea Behind Stamped Money Is Sound.
Ideas
Sound
Behinds
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
When My Information Changes, I Alter My Conclusions. What Do You Do, Sir?
Information
Conclusion
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
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.
Thinking
Hands
Years
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
The Class War Will Find Me On The Side Of The Educated Bourgeoisie.
War
Class
Bourgeoisie
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 Disruptive Powers Of Excessive National Fecundity May Have Played A Greater Part In Bursting The Bonds Of Convention Than Either The Power Of Ideas Or The Errors Of Autocracy.
Ideas
Ties
Errors
When I Find New Information I Change My Mind; What Do You Do?
Mind
Information
New Information
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
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
A Study Of The History Of Opinion Is A Necessary Preliminary To The Emancipation Of The Mind.
History
Mind
Opinion
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
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
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
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 Forces Of The Nineteenth Century Have Run Their Course And Are Exhausted.
Running
Exhausted
Century
The Love Of Money As A Possession...will Be Recognised For What It Is, A Somewhat Disgusting Morbidity.
Wise
Morbidity
Possession
I Believe That The Future Will Learn More From The Spirit Of Gesell Than From That Of Marx .
Believe
Spirit
I Believe
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
The Decadent International But Individualistic Capitalism In The Hands Of Which We Found Ourselves After The War Is Not A Success. It Is Not Intelligent. It Is Not Beautiful. It Is Not Just. It Is Not Virtuous. And It Doesn't Deliver The Goods.
Beautiful
War
Intelligent
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
Most Men Love Money And Security More, And Creation And Construction Less, As They Get Older.
Love
Money
Men
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
Newton Was A Judaic Monotheist Of The School Of Maimonides
School
Newton
It Would Not Be Foolish To Contemplate The Possibility Of A Far Greater Progress Still.
Progress
Foolish
Possibility
I Can't Remember My Telephone Number, But I Know It Was In The High Numbers.
Numbers
Telephones
Remember
I Am Myself Impressed By The Great Social Advantages Of Increasing The Stock Of Capital Until It Ceases To Be Scarce.
Social
Advantage
Scarce
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
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
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
Past
Light
Together
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?
Quality
Advancement
Mud
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
Chess Is A Cure For Headaches.
Chess
Headache
Cures
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?
Years
Issues
Mind
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
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
Choices
Competition
Once Doubt Begins It Spreads Rapidly.
Doubt
Spread
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
Markets Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent.
Money
Investing
Investment
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
Obstinacy Can Bring Only A Penalty And No Reward.
Rewards
Penalties
Obstinacy
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
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
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
Done
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
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
It Is Ideas, Not Vested Interests, Which Are Dangerous For Good Or Evil.
Ideas
Evil
Dangerous
Words Ought To Be A Little Wild, For They Are The Assault Of Thoughts On The Unthinking.
Inspirational
Business
Past
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
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
Filled Up
Digging A Hole
Economics Is A Very Dangerous Science.
Economics
Dangerous
I Do Not Know Which Makes A Man More Conservative - To Know Nothing But The Present, Or Nothing But The Past.
Acceptance
Past
Men
The Considerations Upon Which Expectations Of Prospective Yields Are Based Are Partly Existing Facts Which We Can Assume To Be Known More Or Less For Certain, And Partly Future Events Which Can Only Be Forecasted With More Or Less Confidence.
Yield
Expectations
Investing
Should Government Refrain From Regulation (taxation), The Worthlessness Of The Money Becomes Apparent And The Fraud Can No Longer Be Concealed.
Government
Taxation
Regulation
The Old Saying Holds. Owe Your Banker �1000 And You Are At His Mercy; Owe Him �1 Million And The Position Is Reversed.
Bankers
Mercy
Old Saying
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
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
It Is Astonishing What Foolish Things One Can Temporarily Believe If One Thinks Too Long Alone, Particularly In Economics.
Believe
Thinking
Long
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.
Wise
Morning
Rain
Like Odysseus, The President Looked Wiser When He Was Seated.
President
Odysseus
Wiser
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
Want
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.
Government
Views
United States
When The Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
Business
Mind
Facts
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
Worldly Wisdom Teaches That It Is Better For Reputation To Fail Conventionally Than To Succeed Unconventionally.
Succeed
Reputation
Failing
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
Half
Ideas Shape The Course Of History.
Inspirational
Life Changing
Carpe Diem
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
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
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
He Had One Illusion - France; And One Disillusion - Mankind, Including Frenchmen.
France
Illusion
Economics
Thus Those Reformers, Who Look For A Remedy By Creating Artificial Carrying-costs For The Money Through The Device Of Requiring Legal-tender Currency To Be Periodically Stamped At A Prescribed Cost In Order To Retain Its Quality As Money, Or In Analogous Ways, Have Been On The Right Track; And The Practical Value Of Their Proposals Deserves Consideration.
Order
Creating
Track
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.
Government
Sight
Important
The Social Object Of Skilled Investment Should Be To Defeat The Dark Forces Of Time And Ignorance Which Envelope Our Future.
Ignorance
Dark
Skills
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
The Avoidance Of Taxes Is The Only Intellectual Pursuit That Still Carries Any Reward.
Funny
Business
Humor
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
There Is Nothing So Disastrous As A Rational Investment Policy In An Irrational World.
Investing
World
Investment
The Friends Of Gold Will Have To Be Extremely Wise And Moderate If They Are To Avoid A Revolution.
Wise
Gold
Revolution
[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
If You Owe Your Bank A Hundred Pounds, You Have A Problem. But If You Owe A Million, It Has.
Banking
Pounds
Problem
It Is The Duty Of The Long-term Investor To Endure Great Losses With Equanimity.
Loss
Long
Investing
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.
Years
Liberty
Littles
The Study Of Economics Does Not Seem To Require Any Specialised Gifts Of An Unusually High Order.
Order
Doe
Study
I Am Sure That The Power Of Vested Interests Is Vastly Exaggerated Compared With The Gradual Encroachment Of Ideas.
Ideas
Encroachment
Interest
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.
Suffering
Forget
Share
For My Own Part, I Believe That There Is Social And Psychological Justification For Significant Inequalities Of Incomes And Wealth.
Wisdom
Believe
Income
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.
Government
Important
Done
I Don't Feel The Least Humble Before The Vastness Of The Heavens.
Humble
Heaven
Vastness
Men Will Not Always Die Quietly.
Men
Economics
Dies
It Would Be Foolish, In Forming Our Expectations, To Attach Great Weight To Matters Which Are Very Uncertain.
Expectations
Would Be
Weight
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
In This Autumn Of 1919, In Which I Write, We Are At The Dead Season Of Our Fortunes.
Writing
Autumn
Fortune
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
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
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.
Wisdom
Important
Politics
In Truth, The Gold Standard Is Already A Barbarous Relic.
Gold
Standards
Relics
Conservatism Leads Nowhere; It Satisfies No Ideal.
Wise
Conservatism
Ideals
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
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