If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.
Interpretation
The implications of debt depend on its scale; larger debts shift the burden of concern from the debtor to the creditor.
This quote by J. Paul Getty highlights the disparity in how we perceive debt depending on its size. When an individual owes a small amount, they are seen as being burdened by that debt. However, when the amount is significantly larger, it becomes a concern for the bank or lender, demonstrating the shifting dynamics of power in financial relationships based on the scale of indebtedness.
In practice
Using this quote in a financial seminar to illustrate the risks of excessive borrowing.
Today's dissenters mainly focus their attention and expend their energies on the most inconsequential of trivia. ...Allegedly serious intellectuals quibble endlessly over such ridiculous trivialities...In the meantime, the public is lulled into a perilous somnolence, spoon-fed pap, and palpable untruths, many of which are turned out by special-interest and pressure groups and well organized propaganda machines.
You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. You must learn to thrive on stress.
In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.
The #1 guideline to success is you must be in business for yourself. When you work for someone else, you sell your time at wholesale to your employer, who then re-sells it at retail to the customer.
Patience; this is the greatest business asset. Wait for the right time to make your moves.
There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own.
We tend to focus on assets and forget about debts. Financial security requires facing up to the big picture: assets minus debts.
There is a burden of care in getting riches; fear in keeping them; temptation in using them; guilt in abusing them; sorrow in losing them; and a burden of account at last to be given concerning them.
Assets put money in your pocket, whether you work or not, and liabilities take money from your pocket.
Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.
Net return is simply the gross return of your investment portfolio less the costs you incur. Keep your investment expenses low, for the tyranny of compounding costs can devastate the miracle of compounding returns.
You've got to tell your money what to do or it will leave.
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