In almost every walk of life, people buy more at lower prices; in the stock market they seem to buy more at higher prices.

Debt is always repaid, either by the borrower or by the lender.

Growth at an exceptional rate is a red flag in banking. It is hard enough to manage an ordinary bank; to control a sprouting weed is well-nigh impossible. If loans are expanding too quickly, the lending officers have probably been saying 'yes' too frequently.

The art of banking is always to balance the risk of a run with the reward of a profit. The tantalizing factor in the equation is that riskier borrowers pay higher interest rates. Ultimate safety - a strongbox full of currency - would avail the banker nothing. Maximum risk - a portfolio of loans to prospective bankrupts at usurious interest rates - would invite disaster. A good banker safely and profitably treads the middle ground.

It's about bums on seats. If nobody wants to listen to what you are doing, it kind of defeats the purpose really, doesn't it?

In almost every walk of life, people buy more at lower prices; in the stock market they seem to buy more at higher prices.

To suppose that the value of a common stock is determined purely by a corporation's earnings discounted by the relevant interest rates and adjusted for the marginal tax rate is to forget that people have burned witches, gone to war on a whim, risen to the defense of Joseph Stalin and believed Orson Welles when he told them over the radio that the Martians had landed.