A Quote by William J. Bernstein

The definition of investment is the deferring ofpresent consumption for future consumption. So, you dohave to be willing to defer. And there are a couple of tricks that you can use to save money. One of them is simply to pay yourself first.

William J. Bernstein

Quote Topics

Consumption Couple Defer Definition First Future Investment Money Pay Save Simply Them Tricks Use Willing Yourself

Quote Author

William J. Bernstein
Born: 1954

These debt obligations will simply erode America's standard of living in the future. Money spent to service the debt is money that we don't have to spend on consumption's goods, or on investment in our future.

Joseph Stiglitz

In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption.

Raoul Vaneigem

The illusion that consumption - and its correlative, income - is desirable probably stems from too great preoccupation with what Knight calls "one-use goods," such as food and fuel, where the utilization and consumption of the good are tightly bound together in a single act or event. ... any economy in the consumption of fuel that enables us to maintain warmth or to generate power with lessened consumption again leaves us better off. ... there is no great value in consumption itself.

Kenneth E. Boulding

I really like the idea of consumption tax, and most countries have a pretty serious consumption tax. It's called a value-added tax or a goods and services tax ... It's a sales tax. It doesn't tax labor, it doesn't tax savings or investment - it taxes consumption.

T.R. Reid

To the ideal of high consumption and the downgrading of spiritual values corresponds a conception of injustice that centers exclusively on the problem of consumption; and equality in consumption cannot be achieved except by violence.

Jacques Ellul

All those who, since Adam Smith, have turned their attention to Political Economy, agree that in reality we do not buy articles of consumption with money, the circulating medium with which we pay for them. We must in the first instance have bought this money itself by the sale of our produce.

Jean-Baptiste Say

Developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class-involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing-are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.

Maurice Strong

We can choose to address the twin issues of population and consumption to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption.

John Sulston

The next level of mass consumption - and India is known for its consumption story - is really going to come from consumption in the rural areas. So that's going to throw up a lot of unique opportunities.

Ronnie Screwvala

University administrators are the equivalent of subprime mortgage brokers selling you a story that you should go into debt massively, that it's not a consumption decision, it's an investment decision. Actually, no, it's a bad consumption decision. Most colleges are four-year parties.

Peter Thiel

The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption; not only because it absolutely directs the consumption of the state itself, but because a great proportion of the consumption of individuals is gained by its will and example.

Jean-Baptiste Say

...our societies appear to be intent on immediate consumption rather than on investment for the future. We are piling up enormous debts and exploiting the natural environment in a manner which suggests that we have no real sense of any worthwhile future. Just as a society which believes in the future saves in the present in order to invest in the future, so a society without belief spends everything now and piles up debts for future generations to settle. "Spend now and someone else will pay later."

Lesslie Newbigin

If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.

B. F. Skinner

Whole ideology of consumption almost to the point of religion. Whether it's the consumption of entertainment or the consumption around buying things, we're so caught up with our appetites that we don't have a clear distinction about what we need and what we just want. Plus, the decline of trade unions is a factor. When you have powerful unions, you have a working class that is politicized.

Danny Glover

In most of the affluent populations I have considered, the prevalence of coronary disease is associated with the consumption of sugar. Since sugar consumption is only one of a number of indices of wealth, the same sort of association (to coronary disease) exists with fat consumption, cigarette smoking, cars.