Ahmed

“In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in — or more precisely not in — the country’s businesses and banks. This inventory — it should perhaps be called the bezzle — amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle. In good times people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful. But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more. Under these circumstances the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression all this is reversed. Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous. Commercial morality is enormously improved. The bezzle shrinks.

…

Just as the boom accelerated the rate of growth, so the crash enormously advanced the rate of discovery. Within a few days, something close to a universal trust turned into something akin to universal suspicion. Audits were ordered. Strained or preoccupied behavior was noticed. Most important, the collapse in stock values made irredeemable the position of the employee who had embezzled to play the market. He now confessed.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929

“You see pictures of Buddha and he’s sitting, reclining, at peace. The Hindus have their twelve-armed elephant god, who also seems so content but not powerless. But leave it to Christians to have a dead and bloody man nailed to a cross.”
― Dave Eggers, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

“—Just assume I can threaten you and it's better if you answer my questions. Why do you think my head's on one turn too tight? What does that mean?
—It means that they put a capable brain in your skull, and then when they put the cap on, they turned it one turn too tight. It makes for bad outcomes. I think of graduate students stuffing their colleagues into crevices, shooting professors, that kind of thing. People like you. Smart but nuts. One turn too tight.”
― Dave Eggers, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

“Young men need to be kept away from guns, bombs, women, cars, hard alcohol and heavy machinery.”
― Dave Eggers, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?