[T]he nation's middle class was about to embark on an educational revolution that would help boost incomes to unimagined levels over the next three g… - Henry Kaufman

[G]ood bankers understand the shortcomings of accounting and know how to correct for them.

[D]uring the ... the federal government took large strides to regulate corporate America. ...[T]he federal government managed to break up several trusts (including the , American Tobacco, and ) and to establish the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve.
In our time, business consolidation is evoking no similar reaction.

The credit approval process began with the analysis of balance sheets and profit and loss statements. For those who know how to unlock their secrets, these documents can contain hidden traps, as I soon discovered—and was later reminded by some of the more spectacular credit problems of recent decades. Balance sheets tend to overstate assets and understate liabilities. Inventories commonly are assigned a large cash value after they have become obsolete, while receivables that are ostensibly current are quite often in arrears. Inadequate reserves constitute yet another common weakness that is poorly reflected... A receivable is a current asset, but it could be a slow asset.