Wealth & Money Quote by Adlai E. Stevenson

Stevenson’s line lands like a wry after-dinner toast that quietly indicts the entire room. He borrows a smug old proverb - the comforting idea that financial loss is basically a morality play, with “fools” getting what they deserve - then snaps it in half. The twist (“but now it happens to everybody”) isn’t just a joke; it’s a reclassification. Getting parted from your money is no longer proof of personal stupidity. It’s the new baseline condition of modern life.

The intent is political without sounding like policy. Stevenson, a mid-century liberal trying to sell competence in an era of booming consumer capitalism and expanding government, is pointing at a world where ordinary people are increasingly exposed: to inflation, to credit, to salesmanship, to bureaucratic fees, to markets they don’t control, to the creeping sense that the system is engineered to skim. The subtext is almost anti-moralistic: stop blaming individuals for outcomes that are structurally produced. If “everybody” is losing money, then “fool” becomes an alibi the powerful use to dodge accountability.

It also works because it flatters and implicates at the same time. The audience gets to feel savvy - we’re not fools - while being forced to admit we’re still vulnerable. That tension is Stevenson’s real message: modern economics has industrialized the old con. What used to be a punchline about personal gullibility has become a diagnosis of a society where complexity and persuasion are doing the parting.