James Grant
James Grant
James Augustus Grant, CB, CSI, FRS, FRGSwas a Scottish explorer of eastern equatorial Africa. He made contributions to the journals of various learned societies, the most notable being the "Botany of the Speke and Grant Expedition" in vol. xxix of the Transactions of the Linnaean Society. He married in 1865 and settled down at Nairn, where he died in 1892. He was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral. Grant's gazelle, one of the largest and handsomest of that...
ProfessionExplorer
Date of Birth11 April 1827
debt borrowers lenders
Debt is always repaid, either by the borrower or by the lender.
banking causes failing
It is an axiom nowadays that no bank fails for lack of capital; unprofitable lending is always the underlying cause.
misplaced recessions
Hope sustains life, but misplaced hope prolongs recessions.
doubt banking firsts
[T]he first bad bank loan was no doubt made around the time of the opening of the first bank.
writing people knows
In general, markets know more than the people who write about them.
debt creditors paid
Every debt is ultimately paid, if not by the debtor, then eventually by the creditor.
engineering progress banking
Progress is cumulative in science and engineering, but cyclical in finance.
mind credit
Credit is money of the mind.
running art safety
The art of banking is always to balance the risk of a run with the reward of a profit. The tantalizing factor in the equation is that riskier borrowers pay higher interest rates. Ultimate safety - a strongbox full of currency - would avail the banker nothing. Maximum risk - a portfolio of loans to prospective bankrupts at usurious interest rates - would invite disaster. A good banker safely and profitably treads the middle ground.
looks feds
The Fed can change how things look, not how things are
sex hangover debt
The 1980s are to debt what the 1960s were to sex. The 1960s left a hangover. So will the 1980s.
believe ideas errors
I believe that there is an important kernel of truth in the idea that financial errors recur every other generation.
weed red-flags growth
Growth at an exceptional rate is a red flag in banking. It is hard enough to manage an ordinary bank; to control a sprouting weed is well-nigh impossible. If loans are expanding too quickly, the lending officers have probably been saying 'yes' too frequently.
money people investing
In almost every walk of life, people buy more at lower prices; in the stock market they seem to buy more at higher prices.