James Surowiecki
James Surowiecki
James Michael Surowieckiis an American journalist. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes a regular column on business and finance called "The Financial Page"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
CountryUnited States of America
self taught-us worry
But, if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that self-regulation doesn’t work in finance, and that worries about reputation are a weak deterrent to corporate malfeasance.
running real self
Self-dealing, essentially, occurs when managers run companies to line their own pockets instead of those of the companies' owners. It's been a perennial problem in American capitalism and became a real dilemma when America moved toward a model in which corporations would be run by professional managers who had only small ownership stakes.
jobs procrastination self
Procrastination also can be a way of self-handicapping: if you don't do a great job, you can always say to yourself, "If I'd only started sooner, I'd have been able to produce something excellent."
self people legacy
Patrimonial capitalism's legacy is that many people see reform as a euphemism for corruption and self-dealing.
dream procrastination self
Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather than risk failure, they prefer to create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that of course creates a vicious cycle.
companies effect insidious stock
The stock market has an insidious effect on C.E.O.s' moods, because of its impact not just on their companies but on their own bank accounts.
care driver health insurance main providers whatever
Discussions of health care in the U.S. usually focus on insurance companies, but, whatever their problems, they're not the main driver of health-care inflation: providers are.
You can't be rich unless everyone else agrees that you're rich.
capital excellent human
The U.S. is excellent at importing cheap products from the rest of the world. Let's try importing some human capital instead.
business miss outraged
The problem with venality in business is that getting outraged about it makes it easy to miss the systemic problems that venality often disguises.
best crossing good hear politician rarely simply standard wages workers
Workers who come to the U.S. see their wages and their standard of living boosted sharply simply by crossing the border. That's a good thing, and one of the best arguments for immigration reform, even if you'll rarely hear a politician make it.
economic history learning manage might people
You might say that economic history is the history of people learning to manage risk.
Republicans like to indict Democrats as anti-corporate zealots.
central enormous experience good life work
For most Americans, work is central to their experience of the world, and the corporation is one of the fundamental institutions of American life, with an enormous impact, for good and ill, on how we live, think, and feel.