Excessive Risk Quotes

The first thing I heard when I got in the business - not from my mentor - was, 'Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered.' I'm here to tell you I was a pig. And I strongly believe the only way to make long-term returns in our business that are superior is by being a pig.

Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead.

The only sure way to stop excessive risk taking on Wall Street so you don't risk losing your job, or your savings or your home, is to put an end to the excessive economic and political power of Wall Street by busting up the big banks.

There was a much more self-destructive nature in 'Appetite.' It was a going-for-it-at-all-cost thing that worked then.

I think we might be going a bridge too far.

Financial innovation is an oxymoron. It's very rare that there is something that's actually financial innovation. It's a euphemism for hiding leverage.

The riskiest thing you can do is get greedy.

People are pretty simple: they do what they are rewarded for doing. If they get multimillion-dollar bonuses by taking huge risks with other people's money - as they still do - then they will continue to take those huge risks, and not give it another thought.

Wall Street has a few prudent principles; the trouble is that they are always forgotten when they are most needed.

The actions taken by central banks and other authorities to stabilize a panic in the short run can work against stability in the long run if investors and firms infer from those actions that they will never bear the full consequences of excessive risk-taking.

go in over your head, not just up to your neck.

If we didn't have greed, market economies wouldn't be as innovative as they are. But in my view, greed has to be contained by the fear of losses, so there has to be a system where, if you take too much risk, you go into bankruptcy. You don't systematically bail out people who take excessive risks.

Others settle for small rewards; the neurotic must always go for broke.

Danger for danger's sake is senseless.

All that was clear that the profits to be had from smart people making complicated bets overwhelmed anything that could be had from servicing customers, or allocating capital to productive enterprise.