A Thought Crossed His Mind:

A Tourist Can't Help But Have A Distorted Opinion Of A Place: He Meets Unrepresentative People, Has Unrepresentative Experiences, And Runs Around Imposing Upon The Place The Fantastic Mental Pictures He Had In His Head When He Got There.

Yet Another Hedge Fund Manager Explained Icelandic Banking To Me This Way: You Have A Dog, And I Have A Cat. We Agree That Each Is Worth A Billion Dollars. You Sell Me The Dog For A Billion, And I Sell You The Cat For A Billion. Now We Are No Longer Pet Owners But Icelandic Banks, With A Billion Dollars In New Assets.

There Are Several Insights At The Heart Of The A’s System That I Think Are Wonderful For Baseball. One, That It’s A Team Game. That No One Player Is Going To Make That Much Of A Difference To Your Team, So For God’s Sake Don’t Go Blow A Quarter Of Your Budget On One Guy.

The Sheer Quantity Of Brain Power That Hurled Itself Voluntarily And Quixotically Into The Search For New Baseball Knowledge Was Either Exhilarating Or Depressing, Depending On How You Felt About Baseball. The Same Intellectual Resources Might Have Cured The Common Cold, Or Put A Man On Pluto.

What Are The Odds That People Will Make Smart Decisions About Money If They Don't Need To Make Smart Decisions--if They Can Get Rich Making Dumb Decisions? The Incentives On Wall Street Were All Wrong; They're Still All Wrong.