The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same


Clarence Dillon and Paul Nitze

Driving through New Jersey, Nitze [asked] Dillon if he thought the market decline an omen of hard times ahead . . . Dillon thought for a few minutes and replied, “I think it presages the end of an era.” By this Dillon meant that what lay ahead was not merely a period of retrenchment, after which affairs would be conducted as before. Rather, the world was in for a major overhauling of institutions.

~ Clarence Dillon and Paul Nitze in 1929