There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. - John Kenneth Galbraith

I can measure the motions of bodies,” Sir Isaac Newton once observed, “but I cannot measure human folly.” Nor could he do so as regards his own. He was to lose

To a few alarmed observers it seemed as though Wall Street were by way of devouring all the money of the entire world. However, in accordance with the cultural practice, as the summer passed, the sound and responsible spokesmen decried not the increase in brokers' loans, but those who insisted on attaching significance to this trend.

The power of the market, which is the fulcrum of traditional attitudes, depends on the validity of this assumption. It is a far, far better thing to admit to monopoly profits, even at exploitive levels, than to concede that the market is impotent.