Richard Vague > Quotes

“For all the talk of the US government and the Federal Reserve Bank “printing money,” it is private lending that creates the most new money entering the economy.”
― Richard Vague, The Next Economic Disaster: Why It's Coming and How to Avoid It

“my hunch was confirmed. In the late 1920s there had been an explosive, though rarely mentioned, growth in private debt, right before the all-too-frequently invoked stock market crash of October 1929.”
― Richard Vague, A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises

“buildings taller than 70 meters were constructed in New York between 1922 and 1931 than in any other ten-year period before or since.”
― Richard Vague, A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises

“Debt is a paradox. It can both create and destroy, and even
short of those extremes, debt distorts. Debt, especially private
sector debt, brings growth, and economies cannot function
without it, but its overuse can bring harm and disaster. The
ratio of debt to income almost always rises, with the only
exceptions coming from a small number of economically
painful, calamity-induced contractions. And even these
disasters interrupt, but do not stop, the upward march of debt.”
― Richard Vague