Economic prosperity is far more than the sum of its transactions

Graham Moore's excellent 'The Wealth of Shadows' made me reflect on the value in shorter term messy compromise in aid of a long term ambitious vision. This seems so antithetical to many leaders today who seem to believe in a more transactional 1:1 path to self preservation of current power. And our collective growth in wealth since the second world war is built in foundations of trust and collective action. There is certainly room for dusting the cobwebs and elimination of bureaucracy. But the most successful leaders over the long term will be those who continue to march us to increasing prosperity, and believe the pie can grow.

The book begins each chapter with some thought provoking quotations which I've bucketed under some themes.

The importance of trust and debate, which can soon erode if our institutions and arms of government are not able to articulate their purpose with clarity and conviction

• "All money is a matter of belief" Adam Smith
• "The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work" Satoshi Nakamoto
• "In economics you cannot convict your opponent of error. You can only convince him of it"
• "Money is ... the apogee of human tolerance ... Thanks to money, even people who don't know each other and don't trust each other can nevertheless cooperate effectively" Yuval Noah Harari
• "The whole financial history of the world is about moving from currencies of distrust to currencies of trust. If you look at grain, which was the original currency in ancient Mesopotamia, it required very little trust. You can eat it. You don't need to trust anybody that it's valuable. As you move to gold and paper and digital currency, there is more and more trust. Blockchain is an attempt to go back ... As a historian, I'm skeptical." Yuval Noah Harari
• "Money isn't a material reality - it is a psychological construct ... Trust is the raw material from which all types of money are minted" Yuval Noah Harari
• "Money is a matter of belief, even faith: belief in the person paying us; belief in the person issuing the money ... Money is not metal. It is trust inscribed. And it does not seem to matter much where it is inscribed..." Niall Ferguson

That the markets do not on their own succeed

• "Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all" John Maynard Keynes
• "No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well"
• "Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it" Milton Friedman
• "The bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil." Frederic Bastiat

That Trumponomics has less successful traits seen in prior periods

• "When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will" Frederic Bastiat
• "No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant" Warren Buffett
• "Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another" Milton Friedman
• "MMT (Modern Monetary Theory] says that the government's deficit is always someone else's surplus" Stephanie Kelton
• "If we have money, we shall have friends" Menander
• "The misery of life was having to persuade people" John Maynard Keynes

That having the biggest resources does matter, and remains an advantage today for the USA. But our goal should be to end war not repeat it.

• "War is a matter not so much of arms as of expenditure" Thucydides
• "He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them" Ludwig von Mises
• "The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie" Joseph A Schumpeter
• "In the war services ... the best security for an early conclusion is a plan for long endurance" John Maynard Keynes "How to pay for the war"

And some enjoyable utterances on money

"The best things in life are free. The second best are very, very expensive" Coco Chanel

"The only good reason to have money is this: So that you can tell any SOB in the world to go to hell." Humphrey Bogart

"When I was young, I thought money was the most important thing in life. Now that I am old, I know it is" Oscar Wilde