Humour

It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

Yogi Berra

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Yogi Berra

The successful man is one who makes more than his wife can spend. And the successful woman is one who can find such a man.

Bienvenida Buck

I want a one-armed economist so that the guy could never make a statement and then say “on the other hand”.

Harry S Truman

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

John Cleese

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Ambrose Bierce

Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears.

Robert W Sarnoff

40 years of investing has taught me that rented brains seldom help us build our nest eggs. Rented brains feel a deep spiritual need to build 20,000-square-foot log cabins in Jackson Hole with the return on our money.

Anonymous

I just made a killing in the stock market — I shot my broker.

Henry Youngman

Most business plans fail. Obviously, success is not a realistic goal. But the people who manage the most spectacular failures get promoted because of their experience.

Dogbert

On Wall Street, when you tell your boss you´re leaving, they immediately seal all your files, check your briefcase, give you a rectal exam, and escort you to the door.

Martin Schwartz

A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 AM and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 PM to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch.

Fred Allen

October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.

Mark Twain

I want to warn people from Nigeria who might be watching our show, if you get any e mails from Washington asking for money, it’s a scam. Don’t fall for it

Jay Leno

To be a good investment banker you have to have a good sense of the absurd.

Peter J. Solomon

President Bush’s response was to meet some small business owners in San Antonio last week. The small business owners are General Motors, General Electric and Century 21.

Jay Leno

The rescue bill was about 450 pages. President Bush’s copy is even thicker. They had to include pictures.

Jay Leno

I listened to president Bush’s speech. I think I understand this whole economic crisis. See, rich people on Wall Street made a big mess, and they’re too rich to clean it up. So the rest of America, you know, their maids and butlers, they have to clean it up for them. You see how easy it is?

Jay Leno

As far…as this whole” $700 billion “thing is concerned, they keep saying, ‘We have to act now. We have to act now.’ This is like a bad TV offer. ‘Just 10 easy payments of $70 billion each. Operators are standing by, but you have to act now!

Jay Leno

The First Law of Economics: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economics: They’re both wrong.

A mathematician, an accountant and an economist apply for the same job.
The interviewer calls in the mathematician and asks “What do two plus two equal?” The mathematician replies “Four.” The interviewer asks “Four, exactly?” The mathematician looks at the interviewer incredulously and says “Yes, four, exactly.”
Then the interviewer calls in the accountant and asks the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The accountant says “On average, four – give or take ten percent, but on average, four.”
Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The economist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says “What do you want it to equal?”

Economics is the painful elaboration of the obvious.

A Chicago economist died in poverty and many local futures traders donated to a fund for his funeral. The president of (the Merc, the Board of Trade, etc.) was asked to donate a dollar. “Only a buck?” said the president, “only a dollar to bury an economist? Here’s a check; go bury 1000 of them.”

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.

Robert W. Kent

An economist, a philosopher, a biologist, and an architect were were arguing about what was God’s real profession. The philosopher said, “Well, first and foremost, God is a philosopher because he created the principles by which man is to live.” “Ridiculous!” said the biologist “Before that, God created man and woman and all living things so clearly he was a biologist.” “Wrong,” said the architect. “Before that, he created the heavens and the earth. Before the earth, there was only complete confusion and chaos!” “Well,” said the economist, “where do you think the chaos came from?”

Man walking along a road in the countryside comes across a shepherd and a huge flock of sheep. Tells the shepherd, “I will bet you $100 against one of your sheep that I can tell you the exact number in this flock.” The shepherd thinks it over; it’s a big flock so he takes the bet. “973,” says the man. The shepherd is astonished, because that is exactly right. Says “OK, I’m a man of my word, take an animal.” Man picks one up and begins to walk away.
“Wait,” cries the shepherd, “Let me have a chance to get even. Double or nothing that I can guess your exact occupation.” Man says sure. “You are an economist for a government think tank,” says the shepherd. “Amazing!” responds the man, “You are exactly right! But tell me, how did you deduce that?”
“Well,” says the shepherd, “put down my dog and I will tell you.”

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The state takes one and gives it to someone else.
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The State takes both of them and gives you the milk.
FASCISM: You have two cows. The State takes both of them and sells you the milk.
MILITARY DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The State takes both of them and shoots you.
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. The state takes both of them, accidentally kills one and spills the milk in the sewer.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

When Albert Einstein died, he met three New Zealanders in the queue outside the Pearly Gates. To pass the time, he asked what were their IQs. The first replied 190. “Wonderful,” exclaimed Einstein. “We can discuss the contribution made by Ernest Rutherford to atomic physics and my theory of general relativity”. The second answered 150. “Good,” said Einstein. “I look forward to discussing the role of New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation in the quest for world peace”. The third New Zealander mumbled 50. Einstein paused, and then asked, “So what is your forecast for the budget deficit next year?”

Ur tidningen “Economist”

Q: Why did God create economists?
A: In order to make weather forecasters look good.

Q: Why do Economists provide estimates of inflation to the nearest tenth of a percent?
A: To prove they have a sense of humour.

Seven common human habits that have a bad influence on markets according to Paul Krugman in Fortune Magazine.
1. Think short term.
2. Be greedy.
3. Believe in the greater fool
4. Run with the herd.
5. Overgeneralize
6. Be trendy
7. Play with other people’s money

There are three sorts of economists. Those who can count, and those who can’t.

“Not all Germans believe in God but they believe in the Bundesbank”

Jacques Delors (former president of the European Commission)

Everything the Communists told us about communism was a complete and utter lie. Unfortunately, everything the Communists told us about capitalism turned out to be true.”

Russian Joke

You learn in this business; if you want a friend, get a dog.

Carl Icahn

Two economists sit down to play chess. They study the board for 24 hours and declare a stale-mate.

On the first day God created the sun – so the Devil countered and created sunburn. On the second day God created sex. In response the Devil created marriage. On the third day God created an economist. This was a tough one for the Devil, but in the end and after a lot of thought he created a second economist!

Q: What’s the difference between a finance major and an economics major?
A: Opportunity Cost

We have 2 classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know . . . and those who don’t know they don’t know.

John Kenneth Galbraith

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.

Laurence J. Peter

Having a little inflation is like being a little pregnant–inflation feeds on itself and quickly passes the “little” mark.

Dian Cohen

If all economists were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion.

George Bernard Shaw

If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions.

Winston Churchill

“An economist is someone who sees something working in practice and asks whether it would work in principle.”

From “The Jounal of Money, Creidt and Banking

Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least and disagree most vehemently.

Alan S. Blinder

They say that Christopher Columbus was the first economist. When he left to discover America, he didn’t know where he was going. When he got there he didn’t know where he was. And it was all done on a government grant.

My broker and I are working on a retirement plan. Unfortunately, it’s his!

It was so cold today I saw a stockbroker with his hands in his own pockets.

A minister dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy who’s dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans.
Saint Peter addresses this guy, “Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?”
The guy replies, “I’m Joe Cohen, stockbroker, of Noo Yawk City.”
Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the stockbroker, “Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The stockbroker goes into Heaven with his robe and staff, and it’s the minister’s turn. He stands erect and booms out, “I am Joseph Snow, pastor of Saint Mary’s for the last forty-three years.”
Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the minister, “Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Just a minute,” says the minister. “That man was a stockbroker– he gets a silken robe and golden staff but I, a minister, only get a cotton robe and wooden staff? How can this be?”
“Up here, we work by results,” says Saint Peter. “While you preached, people slept; his clients, they prayed.”

The Walton’s invited their new neighbors over to dinner. During dinner Mr.Walton was asked what he did for a living.
Eight years old Brian Walton jumped in and said, “Daddy is a fisherman!” To which Mrs.Walton replied, “Brian, why do say that. Your daddy is a stockbroker, not a fisherman.”
“No mom. Everytime we visit dad at work and he hangs up the phone he laughs, rubs his hands together and says ‘I just caught another fish’.”

Stockbroker’s creed: A man is a client until proven broke.

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.
Mark Twain

You know you’ve gone to the wrong stockbroker when you ask him to buy 1,000 shares in IBM and he asks you how to spell it.

Most of my thoughts, you couldn´t print.

Jim Rogers

I’ll keep it short and sweet. Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.

Charles Montgomery Burns (from The Simpsons)

Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.

Peter Lynch

Dan was a single guy living at home with his father and working in the family business.
When he found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly father died, he decided he needed a wife with which to share his fortune.
One evening at an investment meeting he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her natural beauty took his breath away. “I may look like just an ordinary man,” he said to her, but in just a few years, my father will die, and I’ll inherit $200 million.”
Impressed, the woman obtained his business card and three days later, she became his stepmother.
Women are so much better at financial planning than men.