Explore Quotes by Charles Duhigg

Even if consumer confidence hit rock bottom, that most likely would not be enough, by itself, to cause a depression.

Between 1857 and 1929, while regulators largely stood idle, the American economy swung through 19 national boom-and-bust gyrations that sometimes threatened to wipe out whole industries within months.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from banks and other lenders, providing those financial institutions with capital to make new loans.

Medicare's top officials said in 2006 that they had reduced the number of fraudulent and improper claims paid by the agency, keeping billions of dollars out of the hands of people trying to game the system.

In the past, NASDAQ has defended flash orders.

Stock exchanges say that more than half of all trades are now executed by just a handful of high-frequency traders, who use rapid-fire computers to essentially force slower investors to give up profits, then disappear before anyone knows what happened.

In California, up to 15 percent of wells in agricultural areas exceed a federal contaminant threshold, according to studies.

Atrazine - a herbicide often used on corn fields, golf courses and even lawns - has become one of the most common contaminants in American drinking water.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Congress distributed more than $60 billion to cities to make sure that what goes into toilets, industrial drains and street grates would not endanger human health.

The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1974 after tests discovered carcinogens, lead and dangerous bacteria flowing from faucets in New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Boston and elsewhere.

Some officials overseeing local water systems have tried to go above and beyond what is legally required. But they have encountered resistance, sometimes from the very residents they are trying to protect, who say that if their water is legal, it must be safe.

There is no central government database that allows officials to monitor water tests by local systems.

Lawmakers in both political parties have often acceded to unions' requests to avoid political confrontations or to curry favor. They have pushed difficult choices into the future.

In the 1970s, New York City defaulted on its debt, and yes, the consequences were painful. Enrollment plummeted at City University campuses, which until then had offered free education. Seven thousand police officers were laid off. Crime skyrocketed. Services for the poor disappeared.

There is a calculus, it turns out, for mastering our subconscious urges. For companies like Target, the exhaustive rendering of our conscious and unconscious patterns into data sets and algorithms has revolutionized what they know about us and, therefore, how precisely they can sell.

Actually, attorneys say, copying a purchased CD for even one friend violates the federal copyright code most of the time.

There are systems called zero discharge emission systems that would prevent any pollution from making it into the water or the air.

Bank of America is the story of some of the most ambitious, aggressive bank builders on the face of the planet.

Older consumers don't want to be treated like teenagers; what's more, they don't want to believe they fall into any niche at all.

Because the fees associated with a reverse mortgage are high, such loans make sense only for borrowers who expect to live in their home for a number of years.

In surveys, many borrowers say reverse mortgages have improved their lives and provided money they needed for retirement.