After being Washington's aide for four years and becoming the hero of Yorktown, Hamilton was viewed with a great deal of suspicion because of his association with Tories.
Ultimately, the appraisal of Grant's presidency rests upon posterity's view of Reconstruction.
The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance.
I don't think that a mutual fund that invests exclusively in biotech start-ups or invests exclusively in companies in Thailand offers any great safety or diversification.
In the 1970s we saw a massive shift of household savings from the banks to the brokerage firms.
Once the brokerage house, rather than the bank, became the locus for American savings, that money would find its way into the stock market, because the broker was someone with a much higher tolerance for risk than the banker.
As the bull market goes on, people who take great risks achieve great rewards, seemingly without punishment. It's like crime without punishment or sex without sin.
As a bull market continues, almost anything you buy goes up. It makes you feel that investing in stocks is a very easy and safe and that you're a financial genius.
Stock market corrections, although painful at the time, are actually a very healthy part of the whole mechanism, because there are always speculative excesses that develop, particularly during the long bull market.
Any bull market covers a multitude of sins, so there may be all sorts of problems with the current system that we won't see until the bear market comes.
A crash really occurs when you suddenly have a violent downturn in the market that then heralds a long bull market.
Hamilton was extremely combative. Not only was he combative, but he also overreacted to anything he perceived as a threat or a criticism.
In many ways, the North won the Civil War militarily and then lost the peace. You know, a group of writers, included many Confederate generals, began a school of thought called the Lost Cause in which they began to romanticize the Confederacy.
Mutual funds have historically offered safety and diversification. And they spare you the responsibility of picking individual stocks.
The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.
I'm dubious about having Social Security put into the stock market. I think that we have gotten very far away from the idea that there's something sacrosanct about retirement investments.
I just have been so surprised and delighted with what has happened with 'Hamilton.' It really has been one of the most enchanting experiences of my life.
By the late 1980s people realized that houses did not always appreciate and that they could fluctuate like any other market commodity.
I'm a biographer; I can live with a little hyperbole.
I think one of the important things that's happened in the course of the century is that life expectancy has doubled.
