• If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.
• Variant reported in Time magazine, Monday, Feb. 17, 1947
• If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.
• As quoted in The Economist (13 February 1982), p. 11
The old saying holds. Owe your banker £1000 and you are at his mercy; owe him £1 million and the position is reversed.
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The old saying holds. Owe your banker £1000 and you are at his mercy; owe him £1 million and the position is reversed." in the context of ""Overseas Financial Policy in Stage III" (memorandum circulated to the UK War Cabinet on 15 May 1945), published in Moggridge, Donald, ed. (1979), The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: Volume XXIV: Activities 1944-1946, page: 258, place: London, publisher: Macmillan, ISBN: 0-333-12674-2
• If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.
• Variant reported in Time magazine, Monday, Feb. 17, 1947
• If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.
• As quoted in The Economist (13 February 1982), p. 11" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
About John Maynard Keynes