Profits are the lifeblood of the economic system, the magic elixir upon which progress and all good things depend ultimately. But one man's lifeblood is another man's cancer.
Paul SamuelsonIf we made an income pyramid out of a child's blocks, with each layer portraying $1,000 of income, the peak would be far higher than the Eiffel Tower, but almost all of us would be within a yard of the ground.
Paul SamuelsonI couldn't reconcile what I was being taught at the university of Chicago, the lectures and the books I was being assigned, with what I knew to be true out in the streets.
Paul SamuelsonTwo-thirds of a century after [The Road to Serfdom] got written, hindsight confirms how inaccurate its innuendo about the future turned out to be.
Paul SamuelsonCompanies are not charitable enterprises: They hire workers to make profits. In the United States, this logic still works. In Europe, it hardly does.
Paul SamuelsonStill, I figure we shouldn't' discourage fans of actively managed funds. With all their buying and selling, active investors ensure the market is reasonably efficient. That makes it possible for the rest of us to do the sensible thing, which is to index. Want to join me in this parasitic behavior? To build a well-diversified portfolio, you might stash 70 percent of your stock portfolio into a Wilshire 5000-index fund and the remaining 30 percent in an international-index fund.
Paul Samuelson