Wisdom in fragments

If you ask an American where the DJIA or Facebook is trading today, everybody knows. Ask the same person how many kids dropped out of high-school last year and nobody knows. That to me is very short sighted, after all what is the better barometer of the future of America?

We are a society of consumers not investors. In my generation… the baby-boomers… we have believed that success is defined by materialism.

You may have gone to the best business in the world and learned that the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location- but it's just not true! It's relationship, relationship, relationship.

If one wants to treat societal problems, then philanthropy and government spending are fine. If one wants to cure societal problems, one has got to come up with sustainable solutions- and that means attracting for-profit capital.

I hate that moniker because it assumes or implies a reduction in yield. I typically think impact investing, on the whole, can generate better risk-adjusted yields than the alternatives.

From fighter-pilot, to test-pilot to astronaut was a logical sequence for a guy that loves aviation. I was very fortunate.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

To me it was an adventure. I'm a hardened explorer and adventurer, and I remember the whole mission as an adventure with some awesome experiences and beautiful sights.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

Once you land, it's total excitement, 'I'm on the Moon!' – you're bubbling with enthusiasm like a little kid on holiday. I thought the Moon was just awesomely beautiful. It was stark, barren, lifeless… yet it had this beauty like the desert.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

From 20,000 miles away however, you couldn't see any civilisation- just the land mass and those three colours… the brown of the land, the white of the clouds and the ice, and the crystal blue of the ocean. Earth was just suspended in the blackness of space and it was an incredibly beautiful sight.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

Everything you do in life that's worthwhile entails some risk, that's the nature of exploration and the nature of adventure.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

They should be stress-testing their balance sheets and portfolios under a range of negative scenarios, and have sufficient capital and liquidity to withstand scenarios that are far out on the tail of the distribution of possible outcomes. The stress tests should account for potential bubbles in global asset markets.

Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics & Economic Forecaster

Global investors were awash in cash due to current account surpluses in emerging economies and easy monetary policies. Investors from emerging economies first invested their rapidly rising wealth in risk-free Treasuries, but once they had their fill of Treasuries they looked for higher yield in what they thought was the next safest thing, U.S. residential mortgages. Due to shrinking returns on less risky investments, other global investors began to search for yield by taking more risk investing in more complicated securities and derivatives.

Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics & Economic Forecaster

Most fundamentally, the subprime bubble was created by- a surfeit of global liquidity due to large current account surpluses in China and other emerging economies and easy global monetary policies; a flawed private mortgage securitization process that funnelled the liquidity into poorly underwritten mortgage and other loans; and weak regulatory oversight that failed to catch and rectify the problems in the securitization process.

Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics & Economic Forecaster

Germany for example, has decided to close-down its nuclear industry. That creates a huge electricity deficit, and there is the potential to produce a large amount of renewable energy in Greece and export it to countries like that.

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

The important thing which central government can do is to promise, without reservation, that there will be no new taxation and 'emergency' taxation- and that they will focus on collecting existing taxes by expanding the tax-base to those who are evading taxes.

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

A lot of negatives have already happened in Greece, and now there is an opportunity. Most Greek assets have been going down in price at some time, and if you happen to hold the right assets? You'll make a killing!

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets