Quote for the Week
To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in—or more precisely not in—the country’s businesses and banks. This inventory—it should perhaps be called the bezzle—amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle. In good times people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful. But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more. Under these circumstances the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression all this is reversed. Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous. Commercial morality is enormously improved. The bezzle shrinks. — John Kenneth Galbraith (source)
From the Archives
Last Call
- Nothing Works All the Time – A Wealth of Common Sense
- Risky Investments Are Coming to Your 401(k)! (video) – K. Statler
- The Jackpot Age – Scimitar Capital
- The Big Secret to Long-Term Investment Success – D. Sotiroff
- Why Skill Improvements Haven’t Translated to Better Returns – L. Swedroe
- The Arrival Fallacy – Range Widely
- On Engineered Wonder – C. Newport
- Contextualizing Our Most Recent Great Earthquake – Earthquake Insights
- The English Land Agent Who Inspired the “Boycott” in 19th-Century Ireland – IrishCentral