George Goodman > Quotes

“Never mind that the long term is a series of short terms, or that in the long run we are all dead. The phrases “patient investor” and “long-term appreciation” ring with the virtues of capitalist ethos.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“If the profit numbers on income statements are treated with such reverence, it was obviously only a question of time before some smart fellows would start building companies not around the logical progression of a business but around what would beef up the numbers.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“For many, the traditional motivations of job security, money rewards, and opportunity for personal advancement are proving insufficient. Large numbers of those we hire find factory life so distasteful they quit after only brief exposure to it. The general increase in real wage levels in our economy has afforded more alternatives for satisfying economic needs. Because they are unfamiliar with the harsh economic facts of earlier years, [new workers] have little regard for the consequences if they take a day or two off . . . the traditional work ethic—the concept that hard work is a virtue and a duty—will undergo additional erosion.”
― George Goodman, Supermoney

“no man is so harmlessly occupied as when he is making money.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“But if you stop to think about it, here is one authority saying there are no formulas which can be automatically applied. If you are not automatically applying a mechanical formula, then you are operating in this area of intuition, and if you are going to operate with intuition—or judgment—then it follows that the first thing you have to know is yourself. You are—face it—a bunch of emotions, prejudices, and twitches, and this is all very well as long as you know it. Successful speculators do not necessarily have a complete portrait of themselves, warts and all, in their own minds, but they do have the ability to stop abruptly when their own intuition and what is happening Out There arc suddenly out of kilter.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“If you listen either to Successful Operator, eaves-dropping on the great Keane, or to Odd-Lot Robert, eavesdropping on the sister’s friend from City Hall, you will notice one attitude in common: There is a They out there in the market.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“It is much easier to say, “While the near term is uncertain, long-term holdings need not be disturbed,” than to say, “Dump this one.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“the end object of investment ought to be serenity.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“THE GLORY OF HIM WHO IS ALL AND IN ALL”
― George Goodman, Free Grace Broadcaster - Issue 162 - The Glory of Christ

“If you don’t know who you are, the stock market is an expensive place to find out.”
― George Goodman

“Prices have no memory, and yesterday has nothing to do with tomorrow.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“It is all there, measured, in what Yankelovich called the McNamara fallacy: The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is okay as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t be measured or give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can’t be measured easily really isn’t very important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.”
― George Goodman, Supermoney

“No, Virginia, there is still a They, which may come as a surprise. They do get information first, They do have the ability to move stocks, and it helps a lot if you know what They are doing.”
― George Goodman, The Money Game

“They say, for example, that the good old Protestant Ethic has died away. Whatever happened to work? Doesn’t anybody want to? And growth: the whole system is geared to growth, that is its justification, it works better. What is all this about no-growth, zero population growth, zero economic growth? There is only so much stuff in and on the planet, and at the rate we are using it up in x years there will be no planet. Apocalyptic literature arrives not only on the ecological side but on the cultural side.”
― George Goodman, Supermoney