Ziad K. Abdelnour

“Think like a maverick, Fight like a gladiator, Love with a humble heart and Die for a cause worth dying for... Be a "game changer"....The basic tenets of my life philosophy.”

“Nations with too many laws, endless regulations, just cannot grow or generate enough jobs. Wake up...”

“Did anyone of those bullish investors ever think what would happen to the Treasury market if the Fed ever became a net seller of bonds?”

“If you need an alarm clock, you need a new job.”

“It's not rocket science. Hong Kong has 95% tax compliance, because it's code is only 4 pages long with a 15% flat tax.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing - the ability to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

“Markets go up. Markets go down. We always make money.... Get used to it”

“When someone talks about their problems, it doesn't just mean they're complaining, it means they trust you enough to tell you.”

“In Life you don't get what you deserve you get what you negotiate...”

“Why spend your life trying to fit in, when you are born to stand out?”

“If you want to raise your standard of living, raise your standard of giving”

“Until Americans stop getting distracted by the Republicans v/s Democrats melodrama, America will move forward towards war, empire & eventually collapse.”

“Those who are skilled in combat do not become angry. The wise win before the fight and the ignorant fight to win.”

“Often in life we forget the things we should remember and remember the things we should forget.”

“You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for wealth creation”

“Power doesn’t always roar.... The art of exerting power is an art used in doses - the more hidden it is the more effective.”

“You may lose people you love. You may lose things you had.. but no matter what, never lose yourself.”

“Female Viagra has been around for years...it's called money.”

“It's okay to have flaws, that's what makes you real.”

“I am not interested in power for power's sake. Only interested in power that will allow people to liberate themselves from Big Brother.”

“Time has now come which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves.”

“We fear rejection, want attention, crave affection and dream of perfection.”

“I tried to be normal once... worst two minutes of my life.”

“I'd rather look back at my past and say, "I can't believe I did that!" instead of saying "I wish I did that.”

“The wise never confuse information or data, however prodigious or cleverly deployed, with comprehensive knowledge or wisdom...Be wise.”

“Do you want to be super successful? Never appeal to people’s mercy or gratitude... Appeal only to their self-interest & see the results”

“Having loads of money doesn't make you a better person.. Spending it smart does.”

“I find it hilarious that if we lie to the government, it's a crime. But if they lie to us its politics”

“If it’s freedom you seek, then wish nothing and shun nothing that depends on others, or you will always be a helpless slave.”

“Blessed is the man who devotes his life to something bigger than himself and finds himself surrounded by friends who share his passion.”

“If you have the power to make someone feel lost without you, it's a wonderful feeling. Use it wisely.”

“Frankly speaking, making money isn't hard in itself... What's real hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one's life to”

“In a time of deceit telling the "truth" is a revolutionary act...Keep doing it.”

“Forget the housing, bond or derivatives bubbles … Fraud Is the Biggest Bubble of all time”

“You've got to find it (the path to wealth) on your own...No one else can find it for you.”

“When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health.”

“If wealth is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.”

“The best way to protect yourself and your family in this time of uncertainty is to create wealth for yourself.”

“The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications.”

“I believe the crisis started when we started prioritizing redistribution of wealth instead of its creation.”

“Even the most well-meaninggovernment policies have unintended consequences that have harmedthe economy. If government policies were today held accountable the wayprivate businesses are, the scoreboard would say government is failingto help people...and this is a fact.”

“trade and wealth creation is not all upside. It is failure, too.Failure is a necessary component to growth and success. Babe Ruthstruck out 1,330 times but also hit 714 home runs. We need to letfailing entities fail. Only then will successful people turn these enterprisesback into wealth-creating vehicles again. “Too big to fail” is aconcept that perpetuates failure and saps vitality from the rest of thewealth creators to do so.”

“Wealth creation is not a business suited to those whose skill setconsists of voting “present.” It requires decision making, risk taking,hard information, discipline, insight, and intelligence.”

“There is a major difference between theoretical knowledge andexperiential knowledge. Academics think they know how the economyshould work; successful business owners know how the economy doeswork. They have been there and done it. Our government should beturning to those who have experiential knowledge when it comes tosolving our fiscal problems. They would realize that many of theircurrent policies may sound good but don’t work in the real worldand must be abandoned. They would spend less and live within theirmeans. They would be promoting the creation of more entrepreneursand business owners, instead of hiring more bureaucrats, consultingmore academics, and enlisting more lawyers to harass and prosecutethe true wealth creators of this nation.”

“Always remember... We are engaged in a battle for the continuation ofour capitalist, free-market economic model; our way of life; and ourliberty. The enemy is anticapitalist, believes in big government, embracescollectivist ideologies, and has, over the past century, infiltrated everylevel of our government and most of the banking industry. They don’t care about patriotism, although they may sport the red, white, andblue and the stars and stripes on their bumper stickers. They don’tcare about personal responsibility or civic duty. They don’t share yoursense of honor. All they care about is power and control over yourmoney and every aspect of your life.”

“Alwasy remember.... We are engaged in a battle for the continuation ofour capitalist, free-market economic model; our way of life; and ourliberty. The enemy is anticapitalist, believes in big government, embracescollectivist ideologies, and has, over the past century, infiltrated everylevel of our government and most of the banking industry. They don’t care about patriotism, although they may sport the red, white, andblue and the stars and stripes on their bumper stickers. They don’tcare about personal responsibility or civic duty. They don’t share yoursense of honor. All they care about is power and control over yourmoney and every aspect of your life.”

“If the world economy is going to revive, I believe commoditiesare going to lead it back up. If the world economy is not going torevive, commodities are still the place to be—especially with governmentsprinting so much money. Look at the 1970s. The worldeconomy was in the tank, but commodities did very well.”

“When people tell you that thisvenerable firm or private investor invested X millions of dollars inthat entity and that it is a good investment, be skeptical and stay opento the option of running as far as you can in the opposite direction.We have all seen the biggest names on Wall Street along with thelargest sovereign wealth funds on the planet make the dumbest investmentsever made. Do your due diligence; ask the right questions, andmost important, check out the character of the people involved unlessyou want to end up being prey to another master of the universe àla Bernie Madoff.”

“Bankruptcy cleans out the system. What’s wrong with that? SouthKorea went through this in the late 1990s. They didn’t have anyoneto bail them out, and they had to go through the pain. Sweden didit in the early 1990s. Mexico did it. Russia did it. The list goes onand on. Competent people take over the assets from incompetentpeople and rebuild from a solid base. Business has always been survivalof the fittest and Darwinism at its best. After all, this is what capitalismis all about.”

“I remain fundamentally optimistic aboutWall Street as a marketplace and as a vehicle for wealth creation. Itsfuture will rightly depend on several variables, chief among thembeing human choices; whether they be rationally, emotionally, subjectivelyor objectively made. Financial engineering taught us that ifit could be quantified, it could be qualified. We learned about howto use leverage and have abused that knowledge for a myriad ofreasons. We became practitioners of the transaction-based model, but forgot that long before the abacus there was trust and integrity,anchors of relationship-based models common with Middle East andAsian markets. It goes back to a handshake, the first and enduringexample of mutual consensus.”