Ihara Saikaku Quotes
There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.
Ihara Saikaku, 1642–1693, Japanese Writer, The Japanese Family Storehouse, 1688
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Burns phrase “mice an’ men” is later used as the title of John Steinbeck’s novel – Of Mice and Men, 1939.
Technically, the probability has never changed. However, most probabilities are in relation to a specific event or time. A levee may have only a 1% probably of failing in a hurricane but if there are 10 hurricanes a year, the probability that the levee will fail at least once in 30 years is about 50%.
This was very consistent with the programmatic philosophy of his boss, FDR, who campaigned on no specific solutions to the Great Depression but promised to try things and of the did not work, try others. His predecessor, Hoover, would try nothing as most ideas contradicted his philosophy or was not favored by the wealthy business interests of the day.
He was otimsitic about the French providing military and financial Aid in the American Revolution.
Politicians and public administrators have been aware of unintended consequences for a long time.
He was reacting to the Japanese Defense of Okinawa which was failing on every front. When Japan started the war with America, its leaders were not at all convinced that they could drive America from the Pacific, but they were convinced that America would not spend the men and material to invade Japanese territory and that they would be able to negotiate a peace at some point if the price of invasion was too high. That assumption was brought into doubt.
He is absolutely right, but unfortunately made this statement several years after he served as the Fed Chairman. He never made a statement like this when he and his colleagues made their policies based on their economic forecasting. Central bankers have generally felt that one of their jobs was to give the people confidence in the nation’s banking system and economy and the admission that much policy making was based on “coin toss” forecasting.
Ihara Saikaku was a Japanese poet and creator of the "floating world" genre of Japanese prose (ukiyo-zōshi).
