“There is hardly any positive democratic thinking in the European tradition until probably the twentieth century. It really took the First World War to get Europeans to start thinking along those lines. So it is quite recent. I think we need to understand just how fragile it is.”— Anthony Kaldellis
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
You have to understand, for instance, that in my lifetime until I was fifty or so- I had not witnessed any period without inflation of twenty or thirty percent, and sometimes one hundred percent.
— Celso AmorimBrazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency
First and foremost was the consolidation of democracy. Second was the stabilisation of the economy. Thirdly- and probably most importantly- was the ability of Brazil to deal with a problem we inherited from colonial times- inequality.
— Celso AmorimBrazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency
In the case of Brazil, one of the most important things is the huge ethnic and cultural mixture which makes us a country with dynamism, vibrancy, and the ability to understand the psychology of other nations.
— Celso AmorimBrazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency
One thing that really helped us was NOT following the IMF prescription, and hence I think the fact that we insisted on having growth (alongside stability) was something that made for a big change in Brazil.
— Celso AmorimBrazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency
This is not just about the elephant- it's about there being different types of elephants. Looking at the market in simplistic distribution perspectives misses the true effect, threat and risk of large movements and upcoming changes.
— Professor Neil JohnsonPhysics professor studying complex systems, crowd behavior, and social networks.
The 'black swan' doesn't appear very often in coin-toss land but in agent based complex systems land, it appears quite a lot.
— Professor Neil JohnsonPhysics professor studying complex systems, crowd behavior, and social networks.
It's absolutely true that a lot of the time the market is indistinguishable from a coin toss- and we all know that… However, when the system is under some stress, when the market is undergoing changes, the coin toss model just doesn't work.
— Professor Neil JohnsonPhysics professor studying complex systems, crowd behavior, and social networks.
The actual actions of the people in the market are the things that determine what happens next within the market.
— Professor Neil JohnsonPhysics professor studying complex systems, crowd behavior, and social networks.
The way the police treat black people is like we're nothing.
— Youth workerThe police never talk to us, they ignore us, they don't think we're human in this area.
— StudentProbably most importantly was the ability of Brazil to deal with a problem we inherited from colonial times- inequality.
— Celso AmorimBrazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency
All conflicts are different with their particular history and reasons. I think that inequality within societies and between regions has become a key cause for conflict, exacerbated by rapid information dissemination, as people are now more aware of inequalities.
— Kristiina RintakoskiUnknown.
We compute some level of default and losses because of those defaults- and perform IRR calculations to create yields and then we haircut it some more because, in truth, we have no idea!
— Krishna MemaniLooking at the bond market to provide you protection from inflation is a fools game. If you are really worried about inflation- you have to buy stocks.
— Krishna MemaniThe only value that government paper provides you at this point is, basically, the fact that if everything goes to 'hell in a handbasket' that you have some assets of value.
— Krishna MemaniThe true risk with all of these securities is the fact that real-yields are actually negative. So I don't think this is an issue of ability or willingness to pay, it's really that you are getting negative real returns.
— Krishna Memani