249 Quotes by James Surowiecki

Punk rock has never really had much patience with musical virtuosity. Actually, it’d be more accurate to say that for most of its history, punk has been actively hostile to virtuosity.

In American politics, ‘Europe’ is usually a code word for ‘big government.’

Although oil is a commodity, it’s still not a commodity like coffee, which, thank God, we will have with us always. At some point the oil will run out.

Bubbles and crashes are textbook examples of collective decision making gone wrong. In a bubble, all of the conditions that make groups intelligent – independence, diversity, private judgement-disappear.

Homogeneous groups are great at doing what they do well, but they become progressively less able to investigate alternatives. Or, as March has famously argued, they spend too much time exploiting and not enough time exploring.

Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably smart – smarter even sometimes than the smartest people in them.

What an economy really wants, after all, is not more investment per se but better investment. It wants capital to flow to companies that will create value – not in the form of a rising stock price but in the form of more goods for less cost, more jobs, and rising wages – by enhancing productivity.

The business of America shouldn’t be subsidizing business.

Real politics is messy and morally ambiguous and doesn’t make for a compelling thriller.