Fool's Gold Quotes

“As with all derivatives, these tools were to offer a way of controlling risk, but they could also amplify it.”
― Gillian Tett, Fool's Gold

“If you could really insure banks and other lenders against default risk, that might well unleash a great wave of capital into the economy.”
― Gillian Tett, Fool's Gold

“To him, bankers were neither noble or Masters of the Universe. They were just businesspeople doing a job, pushing money around the economy as efficiently and effectively as they could.”
― Gillian Tett, Fool's Gold

“If defaults on mortgages were uncorrelated, then the BISTRO structure should be safe for mortgage risk, but if they were highly correlated, it might be catastrophically dangerous. Nobody could know. Duhon”
― Gillian Tett, Fool's Gold

“Back in 1933, during the height of the populist backlash against Wall Street, the son of J. Pierpont Morgan—J. P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr.—had been grilled by Congress about his ethos. He declared that the aim of his bank was to conduct “first-class business…in a first-class way.” Fifty years later, that mantra of Jack Morgan struck much of the banking world as quaint. Years of bold innovation had made high-risk trading and aggressive deal making the gold standard of the street, and a “kill or be killed” ethic prevailed. At”
― Gillian Tett, Fool's Gold