More investment trusts securities were offered in September of 1929 even than in August - the total was above $600 million. However, the nearly simultaneous promotion of Shenandoah and Blue Ridge was to stand as the pinnacle of new era finance. It is difficult not to marvel at the imagination which was implicit in this gargantuan insanity. If there must be madness something may be said for having it on a heroic scale.
John Kenneth GalbraithIt is possible that people need to believe they are unmanaged if they are to be managed effectively.
John Kenneth GalbraithI am worried about our tendency to over invest in things and under invest in people.
John Kenneth GalbraithWe live surrounded by a systematic appeal to a dream world which all mature, scientific reality would reject. We, quite literally, advertise our commitment to immaturity, mendacity and profound gullibility. It is as the hallmark of the culture. And it is justified as being economically indispensable.
John Kenneth GalbraithYou will find that [the] State [Department] is the kind of organisation which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly too.
John Kenneth GalbraithWere it part of our everyday education and comment that the corporation is an instrument for the exercise of power, that it belongs to the process by which we are governed, there would then be debate on how that power is used and how it might be made subordinate to the public will and need. This debate is avoided by propagating the myth that the power does not exist.
John Kenneth Galbraith