Long or Short Capital

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

-Abraham Lincoln

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When it comes to meeting young ladies out at the bars
I won’t lie, I get a nice amount of love

…

So when I do hit the club I ain’t hard to catch
On the dancefloor, spilling my drink, throwing bows
Doing old school dances like the Smurf and Cabbage patch
One shot, Two shot, Three shot, Four
Somebody shoulda stopped me from drinking any more
When I was sober that broad looked like Al Gore
Now she look alot more like Demi Moore

I’m just a regular dude
I do my thang a lil bit, nothin major
I’m not makin excuses
But when it gets like that
You gotta blame it on the Jager.

-From the Soul Position song “Blame it on the Jager”

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Amaranth once sent chess sets as year-end gifts, inscribed with a quotation from the late grandmaster Alexander Kotov: “It often happens that a player carries out a deep and complicated calculation, but fails to spot something elementary right at the first move.”

-From an WSJ article

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Colonel Korn was the lawyer, and if Colonel Korn assured him that fraud, extortion, currency manipulation, embezzlement, income tax evasion and black-market speculations were legal, Colonel Cathcart was in no position to disagree with him.

–Catch 22 (page 211)

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The great mass of people form their political beliefs with little regard for facts or logic. However, the elites also have a strategy for avoiding truth. Elites form their political beliefs dogmatically, using their cleverness to organize facts to fit preconceived prejudices. The masses’ strategy for avoiding truth is to make a low investment in understanding; the elites’ strategy is to make a large investment in selectively choosing which facts and arguments to emphasize or ignore.

-Arnold Kling, Two Strategies for Avoiding Truth

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Relax. The market goes up, the market goes down. But, over the long haul, the market goes up.

-Peter Burke, CEO Global Century Investments

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

-Einstein

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Jack Welch has such unparalleled management skills, they named Welch’s Grape Juice after him because he squeezes the sweetest juice out of his workers’ mind grapes.

-Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) in “30 Rock” (season 1 episode 7)

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[The investors] said to me, ‘Well how can you continue, can you… do you have the strength, or the will, or the enthusiasm, or so…?’ And I said, ‘How can you ask me this question… it is… if I abandon this project I would be a man without dreams and I don’t want to live like that: I live my life or I end my life with this project.’

-Werner Herzog on why he finished Fitzcarraldo after harrowing setbacks

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It is not history, facts, or intelligence that guide most investors through the final phases of a bull market; it is hopes and wishes.

-Richard Russell

To know values is to understand the meaning of movements in the market.

-Charles Dow

Hattip to Hussman.

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There are many ways in which speculation may be unintelligent. Of these the foremost are: (1) speculating when you think you are investing; (2) speculating seriously instead of as a pastime, when you lack proper knowledge and skill for it; and (3) risking more money in speculation than you can afford to lose.

-Benjamin Graham

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The road to truth is long and paved the entire way with annoying bastards.

-Alexander Jablokov

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong — but that’s the way to bet.

-Damon Runyon

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There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

-Milton Friedman

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