James Grant Quotes

In general, markets know more than the people who write about them.

Growth at an exceptional rate is a red flag in banking. It is hard enough to manage an ordinary bank; to control a sprouting weed is well-nigh impossible. If loans are expanding too quickly, the lending officers have probably been saying 'yes' too frequently.

[C]apitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich.

Though the continued march of intellect and education have nearly obliterated from the mind of the Scots a belief in the marvelous, still a love of the supernatural lingers among the more mountainous districts of the northern kingdom; for 'the Schoolmaster' finds it no easy task, even when aided by all the light of science, to uproot the prejudices of more than two thousand years. ("The Phantom Regiment")

The Fed can change how things look, not how things are

To me the gold price takes the form of a very uncomplicated formula, and all you have to do is divide one by 'n.' And 'n', I'm glad you ask, 'n' is the world's trust in the institution of paper money and in the capacity of people like Ben Bernanke to manage it. So the smaller 'n', the bigger the price. One divided by a receding number is the definition of a bull market.

The 1980s are to debt what the 1960s were to sex. The 1960s left a hangover. So will the 1980s.

Central banks have gotten out of the central banking business and into the central planning business, meaning that they are devoted to raising up-if they can-economic growth and employment through the dubious means of suppressing interest rates and printing money. The nice thing about gold is that you can't print it.

Progress is cumulative in science and engineering, but cyclical in finance.

Nothing beats a little cash in a bear market, of course, and the oldest form of cash is gold.

Credit is money of the mind.

It's about bums on seats. If nobody wants to listen to what you are doing, it kind of defeats the purpose really, doesn't it?

Successful investing is about having people agree with you ... later.

[T]he first bad bank loan was no doubt made around the time of the opening of the first bank.