Psychology

The biggest challenge is a lack of confidence. Confidence is preventing businesses from investing significant amounts of their balance sheet strength, they simply do not feel they will get returns on that investment, and so they're holding cash.

Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)

It's definitely affected the psychology of the marketplace. It could not have come at a worse time. We have to deal with this expeditiously and make the system more robust to these kind of issues.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

Financial markets depend on trust, and we had precious little trust as it was. The LIBOR scandal has done nothing to restore that trust. We have to do a lot more work on our regulations, procedures and regulators to re-establish that level of trust.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

That experience [of being tortured] has altered my whole life. You can never be the same person and anything you do is in reference to that moment. I have never been able to pass it.

The people in the advanced countries now face a choice: we can express justified horror, or we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes. If we refuse to do the latter, we will be contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.

Renowned Linguist & Political Activist, Critic of US Foreign Policy

I wish to God she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids.

U.S. Representative from Texas; known for controversial statements

All the market research we have done shows that consumers use diamonds to mark special moments in their lives because they are timeless, have been in the ground 3 billion years and are unique.

The only source of value in our business is the consumer's desire for the product. That desire is built on emotions ascribed to diamonds.

More than just being a luxury item, they are pieces that represent milestone moments- that's why they're important.

The truth is nobody needs a diamond. You don't need a diamond to heat your home, run your car or power your cell-phone. As a business, it's clear to us that there is only one source of value for diamonds- and that is the consumer's desire for the product.

The human species is different now to thirty years ago, we have an electronic extension to our DNA that gives so many distractions, so much multi-tasking, and so little time to focus on a single thought for any extended period of time.

Founder of Palo Alto Software and business planning expert

We've found that innovation really happens when you constrain a problem very specifically and then throw it out to the world to solve. It's a slightly different way of thinking.

When you put a prize out there, you legitimise the pursuit of something which is often pretty audacious. Legitimacy also brings about renewed focus and vigour on the problem at hand- it's a little like the context of a 4 minute mile… nobody thought it was possible until it was achieved.

Markets have an incredible capacity to forget, so who knows if it will stay like that… Markets forget, they get over-leveraged, they extend themselves, we will see other bubbles.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

What I mean by that is compensation systems- especially for traders- that created go for broke incentives. If you won big, you became fabulously wealthy- and if you lost big- you got a comparative slap across the wrist.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

There's a disease shared between individuals who consider themselves the smartest people in the room that makes them think they'll be the ones that get out just in time, while others are left holding the bag. That was true for a few people, but in general… someone will always be left holding the bag.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board