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Steven Rattner Quotes

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About Steven Rattner

Steven Rattner, born on August 15, 1960, is an American investment banker, media executive, political commentator, and author, whose career spans across various sectors including finance, politics, and media. Raised in Queens, New York, Rattner graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor's degree in 1982. He began his professional journey as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, where he worked for over a decade before transitioning to Quadrangle Group, a private equity firm he co-founded in 2004. Rattner's political career started during the Obama administration when he served as the Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Car Czar, leading the restructuring of the American automobile industry in 2009. He later authored "Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry," detailing his experiences during this critical period. In addition to his financial and political pursuits, Rattner has made significant contributions to media through his role as a contributor for CNN and MSNBC. He also co-authored the book "It Was Bound to Happen: How Good Economics Helped Lead America (and the World) Out of Recession—and Inflation, Stagflation, and Depression" with Ted Reed in 2010. Rattner's latest work, "Why Finance Matters," published in 2019, delves into the critical role finance plays in society and the challenges it faces today. Throughout his diverse career, Rattner has been recognized for his expertise and insights, earning him a reputation as a thought leader in finance, politics, and media.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"Investing in stocks is not like playing a game; it's more like being a general in war."

This quote by Steven Rattner compares investing in stocks to being a general in war. The implication is that, just as a general must strategize, adapt to changing circumstances, and make calculated decisions based on available information, an investor must also carefully plan their investment strategy, be prepared for market volatility and uncertainties, and make informed decisions based on the data at hand. Investing isn't merely a game with predictable rules but rather a complex endeavor requiring skill, foresight, and adaptability.

"The art of investment consists in purchasing at the lowest price and selling at the highest."

This quote emphasizes the fundamental principles of investing, which is to buy assets (such as stocks or real estate) when their prices are low, and sell them when their prices are high. Essentially, it's about making profitable trades by capitalizing on market fluctuations and trends, aiming to maximize returns while minimizing risk. This quote is a reminder that successful investing requires a combination of careful analysis, patience, and good timing.

"Stock prices will always be far more volatile than the intrinsic value of the companies they represent."

This quote emphasizes that stock market fluctuations often do not align with the true, underlying value of a company (its "intrinsic value"). Prices in the stock market can be unpredictable and subject to various external factors such as investor sentiment, economic conditions, and market trends. While the intrinsic value represents the real worth of a company based on its fundamentals like earnings, assets, and growth prospects, market prices can deviate significantly from this due to speculation or temporary market instability. Therefore, investors should not solely rely on stock price movements when assessing potential investments; instead, they must also consider the long-term financial health and future prospects of the company itself.

"In investing, as in poker, it's important to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em."

This quote implies that successful investment, much like poker, requires knowing when to keep your current position (hold 'em) and when to cut your losses by selling (fold 'em). It suggests the importance of making informed decisions based on a thorough understanding of market conditions, your own portfolio, and the potential risks and rewards. In other words, it emphasizes the importance of discipline, strategy, and adaptability in both investing and poker.

"You don't get rich renting out houses. You get rich owning them. Eventually you don't need the rent checks."

This quote emphasizes the long-term wealth creation potential in real estate ownership, rather than just rental income. The idea is that while rental income can provide steady cash flow, the true value comes from owning the property outright, eliminating the need for ongoing rental income because the property's appreciation and any passive income streams (like capital gains) can sustain wealth accumulation over time.

To fix Social Security, we should first stop using the Consumer Price Index to adjust benefits for inflation. Using the C.P.I. overstates the impact of inflation and has also led to larger increases in benefits for Social Security recipients than the income gains of typical American workers.

- Steven Rattner

Benefits, Income, Larger, Impact

Visits to crowded Indian urban centers unleash sensory assaults: colorful dress and lilting chatter provide a backdrop to every manner of commerce, from small shops to peddlers to beggars.

- Steven Rattner

Dress, Small, Backdrop, Chatter

Picking winners among the many young companies seeking money is a tough business, even for the most sophisticated investors. Indeed, most professionally run venture funds lose money. For individuals, it's pure folly. Buy a lottery ticket instead. Your chance of winning is likely to be higher.

- Steven Rattner

Young, Sophisticated, Folly, Funds

The highest-income Americans don't need tax-free health insurance, mortgage interest deductions or deferred taxation on retirement funds.

- Steven Rattner

Insurance, Need, Deferred, Funds

Increased revenues, meaning higher taxes, will be a central element of any successful long-term budget plan, and President Obama is right to insist that the wealthy - the slice of America that has come through the recession in by far the best financial health - should provide those funds.

- Steven Rattner

Through, Wealthy, Increased, Funds

Not surprisingly, troubled economic times often beget proselytizers of wacky, extreme ideas.

- Steven Rattner

Troubled, Often, Times, Surprisingly

Slapping a catchy acronym like the JOBS Act on a piece of legislation makes it more difficult for politicians to oppose it - and indeed that's what happened with the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act.

- Steven Rattner

Business, Like, Catchy, Startups

Thanks to decades of accumulated federal budget deficits and, more significantly, imprudent Medicare and Social Security policies, we've stolen almost $60 trillion from our children.

- Steven Rattner

Social, Imprudent, Almost, Stolen

It's time for the sensible center to rise up and push for a rational approach to our fiscal challenges.

- Steven Rattner

Challenges, Center, Fiscal, Sensible

During my 30 years on Wall Street, taxes on 'unearned income' have bounced up and down with regularity, and I've never detected any change in the appetite for hard work and accumulating wealth on the part of myself or any of my fellow capitalists.

- Steven Rattner

Income, Taxes, Part, Capitalists

Eye-popping tales of growing income inequality are hardly new. By now, nearly every American must be painfully aware of the widening pay gap between top executives and shop floor laborers; between 'Master of the Universe' financiers and pretty much everyone else.

- Steven Rattner

Income, Shop, Widening, Laborers

The stagflation of the 1970s blessed us with damaging wage and price controls and the utterly counterintuitive supply-side notion - famously drawn on a napkin - that cutting taxes would lead to higher tax revenues.

- Steven Rattner

Blessed, Controls, Taxes, Napkin

To be sure, India has achieved enviable success in business services, like the glistening call centers in Bangalore and elsewhere. But in the global jousting for manufacturing jobs, India does not get its share.

- Steven Rattner

Business, Sure, Enviable, Manufacturing

The weak economy, widening income inequality, gridlock in Congress and a presidential election: Those were perhaps the dominant economic and political themes of 2012.

- Steven Rattner

Election, Income, Dominant, Presidential

Finally, let's keep well in mind the most important lesson of the auto rescue: While government should stay away from the private sector as much as possible, markets do occasionally fail, and when they do government can play a constructive role, as it did in the case of the auto rescue.

- Steven Rattner

Play, Private, Auto, Rescue

China has lunged into the 21st century, while India is still lurching toward it.

- Steven Rattner

Still, Century, Toward, 21st Century

Most troublesome is the legalization of 'crowd funding,' the ability of start-up companies to raise capital from small investors on the Internet.

- Steven Rattner

Small, Funding, Capital, Troublesome

India's rigid social structure limits intergenerational economic mobility and fosters acceptance of vast wealth disparities.

- Steven Rattner

Wealth, Mobility, Social, Limits

Neither the George W. Bush nor the Obama administrations volunteered to bail out G.M., Chrysler and other parts of the auto sector. Both subscribed firmly to the longstanding American principle that government should resolutely avoid these kinds of interventions, particularly in the industrial sector.

- Steven Rattner

Other, Volunteered, Firmly, Subscribed

From the Left comes the proposition that, given the slow economy, we should defer attending to the problem of mounting obligations - and the truly delusional idea that growing federal debt doesn't matter because we owe most of it to ourselves.

- Steven Rattner

Idea, Obligations, Defer, Delusional

As a beneficiary of the carried interest loophole, I've seen firsthand the lack of any difference between the work involved in generating a carried interest and the work done by millions of other professionals who are taxed at the full 35 percent rate.

- Steven Rattner

Other, Professionals, Firsthand

Conservatives brayed that government should stay out of the private sector; liberals bleated for nationalizing the banks.

- Steven Rattner

Stay, Private, Banks, Private Sector

The largest number of jobs likely to be created by the JOBS Act will be for lawyers needed to clean up the mess that it will create.

- Steven Rattner

Will, Largest, Likely, Lawyers

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