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
thinking want way
Critics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but for the most part it's the other way around: companies must make what consumers want and deliver it at the lowest possible price.
long way certain
A long-term crisis, after a certain point, no longer seems like a crisis. It seems like the way things are.
republic corporations way
The typical American corporation is a shareholders' republic the same way that China is a peoples' republic.
thinking way multitasking
I do think to some extent multitasking is a way of fooling ourselves that we're being exceptionally efficient.
smart thinking way
Paradoxically, the best way for a group to be smart is for each person in it to think and act as independently as possible.
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.