The Beauty of Numbers

04/02/00

They aren't worth anything now. But they will be again. I really should be giving it to you for your nothing. But that would be bad for you and for me. You must always know when to pull out. A businessman isn't a mathematician. Remember that. Never become hypnotized by the beauty of numbers. A businessman is someone who always buys at ten and is happy to get out at twelve. The other kind of man buys at ten, sees it rise to eighteen and does nothing. He is waiting for it to get to twenty. The beauty of numbers. When it drops to ten again, he waits for it to get back to eighteen. When it drops to two, he waits for it to get back to ten. Well, it gets back there. But he has wasted a quarter of his life. And all he has gotten out of his money is a little mathematical excitement.

This is from A Bend in the River by V.S.Naipaul. They are discussing the price of a house after there has been a run on real estate when the colonialists are preparing to leave a west African country (i.e. pre-independence).