The Ascent of Money Quotes

“The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“there really is no such thing as ‘the future’, singular. There are only multiple, unforeseeable futures, which will never lose their capacity to take us by surprise.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“perennial truths of financial history. Sooner or later every bubble bursts. Sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers. Sooner or later greed turns to fear.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“money is a matter of belief, even faith: belief in the person paying us; belief in the person issuing the money he uses or the institution that honours his cheques or transfers. Money is not metal. It is trust inscribed. And it does not seem to matter much where it is inscribed: on silver, on clay, on paper, on a liquid crystal display.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Money, it is conventional to argue, is a medium of exchange, which has the advantage of eliminating inefficiencies of barter; a unit of account, which facilitates valuation and calculation; and a store of value, which allows economic transactions to be conducted over long periods as well as geographical distances. To perform all these functions optimally, money has to be available, affordable, durable, fungible, portable and reliable.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“poverty is not the result of rapacious financiers exploiting the poor. It has much more to do with the lack of financial institutions, with the absence of banks, not their presence. Only when borrowers have access to efficient credit networks can they escape from the clutches of loan sharks, and only when savers can deposit their money in reliable banks can it be channelled from the idle rich to the industrious poor.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“The liabilities of the bank thus became its deposits (on which it paid interest) plus its reserve (on which it could collect no interest); its assets became its loans (on which it could collect interest).”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter,’ he told the Wall Street Journal. ‘But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“bear in mind when trying to compare housing with other forms of capital asset. The first is depreciation. Stocks do not wear out and require new roofs; houses do. The second is liquidity. As assets, houses are a great deal more expensive to convert into cash than stocks. The third is volatility.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Large numbers of under-capitalized banks were a recipe for financial instability, and panics were a regular feature of American economic life - most spectacularly in the Great Depression, when a major banking crisis was exacerbated rather than mitigated by a monetary authority that had been operational for little more than fifteen years.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Although the court recognizes his right to insist on his bond - to claim his pound of flesh - the law also prohibits him from shedding Antonio’s blood.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“There may be a lesson here for our time, too. The first era of financial globalization took at least a generation to achieve. But it was blown apart in a matter of days. And it would take more than two generations to repair the damage done by the guns of August 1914.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“se podía incluir a Rothschild en la misma categoría de Richelieu y Robespierre como uno de los «tres terroríficos nombres que conjuran la gradual aniquilación de la vieja aristocracia». Richelieu había destruido su poder; Robespierre había decapitado sus restos decadentes, y ahora Rothschild proporcionaba a Europa una nueva élite social”
― Ferguson Niall, El triunfo del dinero

“Ricos y pobres, parece que los estadounidenses ven la bancarrota como un «derecho inalienable», casi en igualdad de condiciones con «la vida, la libertad y la búsqueda de la felicidad».”
― Ferguson Niall, El triunfo del dinero

“It is not the fault of the mirror if it reflects our blemishes as clearly as our beauty.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“The subprime butterfly had flapped its wings and triggered a global hurricane.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Banknotes (which originated in seventh-century China) are pieces of paper which have next to no intrinsic worth. They are simply promises to pay (hence their original Western designation as ‘promissory notes’),”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Early in Bill Clinton’s first hundred days as president”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Nothing illustrates more clearly than the Japanese experience the intimate links between the welfare state and the warfare state.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Стоит ли винить зеркало в том, что оно одинаково четко показывает наши достоинства и недостатки?”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Если вы хотите знать, почему так мало людей пытаются сделать хоть что-нибудь, приглядитесь повнимательнее, и вам приоткроется хотя бы часть ответа: задавая этот вопрос себе, люди стреляют глазами по сторонам в поисках реакции... и в то же время всячески показывают, что они-то совершенно спокойны и не собираются разделять волнение себе подобных.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Стоит человеку появится на свет, как он седлает качели, переносящие его от эйфории к унынию и обратно за несколько мгновений, и уже не слезает с них.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Когда я говорю о «неопределенном» знании, я не просто желаю отделить известное наверняка от того, что всего лишь возможно. Как я понимаю, в игре в рулетку нет места неопределенности. Лишь немного неопределенной является продолжительность жизни. То же можно сказать и о погоде. Когда я говорю «неопределенность», в голову приходят примеры грядущей общеевропейской войны или... ставки процента через двадцать лет. У нас нет надежной научной основы, чтобы вычислять вероятность подобных событий хоть с какой-нибудь точностью. Можно сказать и проще: мы не знаем. - Кейнс”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“...никакого «будущего» нет — есть лишь множество возможных вариантов развития событий, покрытых пеленой неопределенности, а вовсе не прозрачной накидкой риска.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Простые смертные не хеджируются, потому что у них нет денег, а если бы и были — не ясно, как это делать.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Случай порождает беспорядок, и все же почти наверняка с течением времени эти неровности будут значить все меньше и меньше на фоне порядка, каковой следует из первоначальных установлений. - Авраам де Муавр”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Будущих много, они неповторимы и едва ли когда перестанут застигать нас врасплох.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Инстинкт самосохранения в финансовом мире — это инстинкт сбережения на будущее, ведь никто не знает, что оно несет. Прожить жизнь — значит пройти полный опасностей путь. Мало кому удается одолеть его, ни разу не оступившись. Кто-то падает и встает лишь затем, чтобы снова упасть.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“Бывает, что важнейшие с точки зрения истории события становятся таковыми просто потому, что не происходят в действительности.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

“История, и история пузырей на фондовых рынках в частности, карает, но почти ничему не учит.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World