Jia Jun Qin

“The commercial banker performs three near-sacred functions central to any capitalist society: the safeguarding of other people’s money; the provision of working capital to businesses, without which the economy cannot function; and the creation of money. By contrast, the investment banker sells stocks and bonds to the public, a much riskier and morally more ambiguous activity.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“The primary function of financial capitalism is to efficiently funnel money from those with an excess of it to those who need it.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“Disconfirmation of deeply held beliefs causes severe psychic pain; what better way of alleviating it than in the company of newly won believers? As put by Festinger, “If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly it must, after all, be correct.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“human phenomenon: our species’ preference for “positively skewed outcomes”—ones with low-probability but enormous payoffs, even if the average of all payoffs is negative.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups