Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
in modern society, fear of unemployment remains the darkest of the shadows thrown by the past. In an industrial order, a man out of work is almost a man out of life.
After the 1929 crash, the Federal Reserve mistakenly focused its policies on preserving the gold value of the dollar rather than on stabilizing the domestic economy.
The question whether the long effort to put an end to war can succeed without another major convulsion challenges not only our minds but our sense of responsibility.
If you have a traditional view of economics, you're probably thinking of Ben Bernanke making Fed policy, or the guys creating financial derivatives at Goldman Sachs.
Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies of organizers are always good?
We certainly do not regard it as right that the citizens of a large country should dominate those of a small adjoining country merely because they are more numerous.
Malthus has been buried many times, and Malthusian scarcity with him. But as Garrett Hardin remarked, anyone who has to be reburied so often cannot be entirely dead.
Our objective in regulation should be to put in place tough enough regulation and capital and liquidity standards that we level the playing field and make it costly.
New policy tools, which helped the Federal Reserve respond to the financial crisis and Great Recession, are likely to remain useful in dealing with future downturns.
Despite a decade of criticism and budget cuts, the specialised UN agencies have far more expertise and hands-on experience than any other organisations in the world.
The tendency of all strong governments has always been to suppress liberty, partly in order to ease the processes of rule, partly from sheer disbelief in innovation.
Much of my work in this period was concerned with exploring the logic of economic models, but also with attempting to reconcile the models with everyday observation.
We share a common planet, and the world has learned the hard way that we have to get along and work together. We have learned, too, that cooperation can benefit all.
The proposition that the meek (that is the adaptable and serviceable), inherit the earth is not merely a wishful sentiment of religion, but an iron law of evolution.
An early fascination with higher mathematics at the university level blossomed into speculative thinking that could provide a basis for dealing with economic issues.
Business schools are failing to teach the students about the risks of market failures. We need to include some material on market failures in the core of curriculum.
Capitalists make money by exploiting labor and by externalizing the costs of the wastes produced by the productive process by imposing the wastes on the environment.
The economy is this huge innovation discovery machine. What the government can do usefully is to focus some of that effort where things turn out better for everyone.
As one may bring himself to believe almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether we begin or end with the inquiry, 'What is truth?'
Many anti-energy groups display little appreciation of the extent to which modern economies depend pervasively on the use of fossil fuels and petrochemical products.
Monetary contractions are attractive as the key shocks in the 1929-1933 years, and in other severe depressions, because there do not seem to be any other candidates.
If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, "what would I do if I were a horse?"
The expansion of the market creates a need for enhanced and more regular supply, and this in turn impels commercial capital to acquire control of production as well.
Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists'
Government cannot solve all our problems, even in normal times, much less during a catastrophe of nature that reminds man how little he is, despite all his big talk.
Freedom is unlikely to be lost all at once and openly. It is far more likely to be eroded away, bit by bit, amid glittering promises and expressions of noble ideals.
A recent poll shows that a majority of blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics do not think the Census should be classifying people as black, white, Asian and Hispanic.
Some of the gold possessed by the Romans is doubtless mixed with what we now possess; and some small part of it will be handed down as long as the human race exists.
The hope that poverty and ignorance may gradually be extinguished derives indeed much support from the steady progress of the working classes during the 19th century.
I'Â’m generally in favor of economic globalization. Having said that, it doesnÂ’t always work and does not immediately work in the interest of all. There are sufferers.
Capability is just a concept of what is it we're looking at. Now how far we can go along that and what new capabilities become possible is something we have to judge.
I have come to believe that politicians are in the business of 'marketing' their product to the public, by exaggerating threats and over-selling government solutions.
The story of how the Laffer Curve got its name begins with a 1978 article by Jude Wanniski in 'The Public Interest' entitled, 'Taxes, Revenues, and the Laffer Curve.'
When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't know the answer either.
It can hardly be denied that such a demand quite arbitrarily limits the facts which are to be admitted as possible causes of the events which occur in the real world.
Along with others, I have tried to pry economists away from narrow assumptions about self interest. Behavior is driven by a much richer set of values and preferences.
The reason why Botswana has done very well is because it's the only black African country which went back to its roots and built upon its own indigenous institutions.
From that date the abandonment of the older State proceeded with a rapidity never before known, and with it grew the domestic slave trade and the pro-slavery feeling.
The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour.
An economy may be in equilibrium from a short-period point of view and yet contain within itself incompatibilities that are soon going to knock it out of equilibrium.
When we say that the persistence of competition is ensured by fate, we mean that individual freedom is so guaranteed. The one thing to which fate binds us is liberty.
It has been the acknowledged right of every Marxist scholar to read into Marx the particular meaning that he himself prefers and to treat all others with indignation.
Competition is good for consumers for the simple reason that it compels producers to offer better deals - lower prices, better quality, new products, and more choice.
Much of my work in this period was concerned with exploring the logic of economic models, but also with attempting to reconcile the models with every day observation.
True enough, the Fed needs radical reforms. In particular, it needs to replace its failed forecasting models and be rid of the academics who overwhelm the Fed system.
Hume develops his arguments by a series of models. He doesn't call them models in the pretentious way in which we envelope, very often, pure banalities in this jargon
The costs of government are bound to be much higher than those of the free market. . .The State cannot calculate well and therefore cannot gauge its costs accurately.
In fact, I'd say that the sources of the economy's expansion from 2003 to 2007 were, in order, the housing bubble, the war, and - very much in third place - tax cuts.
By rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.
What good does it do a black youth to know that an employer must pay him $2 an hour if the fact that he must be paid that amount is what keeps him from getting a job?