Stilltitled

there’s a real chance that, soon enough, Chinese economic weakness will be a bigger problem than was Chinese economic strength.

—Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University, via Economic View: NYT

We all have to decide what we want at this moment in history, vitality or security.

—David Brooks on healthcare reform

We have seen broad improvement in home prices for most of the past six months. However, the gains in the most recent month are more modest than during the seasonally strong summer months. Fewer cities saw month to month improvements in September than in August in both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted figures. Nationally, the U.S. National Composite rose by 3.1% in both the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2009. Both the 10-City and 20-City Composites posted their fifth consecutive monthly increase with September’s report. Earlier some analysts voiced concern that the end of the first-time home buyer program would result in a drop in activity. While housing starts did slip in October, the federal government recently extended and expanded the first-time homebuyer tax credit.

—David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s

This may be a bit of a transition period…You can look down the street and have 10 houses to choose from.

—Maureen Maitland, vice president for index services at Standard & Poor’s

Though we have seen some signs that the worst may be over, the housing industry is not out of the woods yet. Nor is the broader economy.

—Federal Reserve President Sandra Pianalto on 17 November

This is the big growth strategy for I.B.M., the company’s next big play for this decade. SAS comes from the legacy world of statisticians and programmers. The real opportunity is in deploying this technology broadly in corporations.

—Ambuj Goyal, a computer scientist who is general manager of I.B.M’s business analytics software unit

We must reform the international monetary system. A good monetary system should make us confident. But we don’t have confidence in the US dollar now.

—Yu Yongding, a former Chinese central bank adviser, on 17 Nov

Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.

—Max Frisch, Homo Faber (1957)

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.

–Thomas J. Watson, (1874-1956), former President of IBM, one of the richest men of his time and called the world’s greatest salesman when he died in 1956

when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert, he is apt to offer generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong.

—Steven Pinker on Malcolm Gladwell

We are in a fairly advanced stage of economic mutual interdependence. I think the Chinese can pull the rug out from under our economy only if they want to pull the rug out from under themselves…I think it is neither of our interests to see that unravel. If we can find ways to manage our differences and cooperate where we can, we both win. If not, we both lose.

—Kenneth Lieberthal, a China specialist with the Brookings Institution

We are really put in a corner. China will not take any irrational action. We don’t want to hurt you — because if we hurt you, we hurt ourselves first. It’s a kind of synergy.

—Yu Yongding, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

They’re in the dollar trap. There’s no easy way out of it.

—Nicholas Lardy

China is a big customer for U.S. debt, but it is not America’s banker. Nor is the United States dependent on China to finance its budget deficits.

—Steven Dunaway, CFR