The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.

I think the whole issue of a debt ceiling makes no sense to me whatsoever. Anybody who is remotely adroit at arithmetic doesn't need a debt ceiling to tell you where you are.

Economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment.

Speaking as somebody who has been happily married for 35 years, I can't imagine any choice more consequential for a lifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.

The more guidance a central bank can provide the public about how policy is likely to evolve the greater the chance that market participants will make appropriate inferences.

When historical relationships are taken into account, it is difficult to ascribe the house price bubble either to monetary policy or to the broader macroeconomic environment.

The enjoyment of work - to the extent that you have any - is likely highest in the first hours of the day when you are fresh, not tired, working on the most important things.

In my junior year in college, I was getting kind of tired of French. So, I took an economics course, and I loved it. The rest of my two years in college I spent in economics.

What comes with a job as a staff member of the BBC is a certain self-censoring that you get utterly used to. You don't say everything you think. You hold back on some things.

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

My Swedish grandmother was the daughter of a dairy farmer who lived near Hedemora. My Swedish grandfather worked as a clerk for the Swedish railways in the Stockholm station.

Somethin' like four thousand bottles have been thrown at me in my day but only about twenty ever hit me. That does not speak very well for the accuracy of the fans' throwing.

An increase in shareholder value can arise for reasons other than greater efficiency, such as increased power and the resulting ability to increase profits by raising prices.

If there is a job that you feel passionate about, do what you can to pursue that job; if there is a purpose about which you are passionate, dedicate yourself to that purpose.

Over a long period of time, technological change is something that has been important in reducing manufacturing employment - absolutely and as a share of jobs in the economy.

If the adjustment made by a court can be accepted or not, it will be refused whenever the men can gain more by continuing the strike, with whatever of violence that involves.

In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.

Gender equality is essential for ensuring that men and women can contribute fully at home, at work, and in public life for the betterment of societies and economies at large.

We need to focus much more on the bottom 40 per cent. They are losing ground, and the fact that they are losing ground blocks social mobility and brings down economic growth.

We could, of course, always make the payments, simply by printing more money - we simply promise to pay people by giving them dollar bills - but that could set off inflation.

It is a set of policies formulated between 15th and 19th streets by the U.S. Treasury, and World Bank. Countries should focus on stabilization, liberalization, privatization.

Although I was not aware of it at the time, the experience of growing up during the Great Depression was to have a profound impact on my intellectual and professional career.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results when, in fact, the results never change, is one definition of insanity. That goes for economics, too.

The E.U. needs Britain more than Britain needs the E.U. The London Stock Exchange is one of the most powerful financial centers in the world. Frankfurt will never replace it.

Technology and Ideology are shaking the foundations of 21st century capitalism. Technology is making skills and knowledge the only sources of sustainable strategic advantage.

Fascinated by history during my secondary education, then by physics and mechanics at the Ecole Polytechnique, I finally entered the national administration of mines in 1936.

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

Undoubtedly Internet has reduced the possibilities of taxation. Why should I buy something here if I can buy it from a company in Japan or England or Brazil with a lower tax?

No country can be complacent in making sure that excessive debt of the household doesn't create excesses and weaknesses in the financial system. Everything is interconnected.

Tariffs protect ill-considered government policies, such as costly regulations and high taxes on labor and capital that make our goods uncompetitive in international markets.

Few, if any, corporations absorb the full cost of their operations. Corporations shove many of their costs onto the environment, the public sector, and distant third parties.

Profits are the lifeblood of the economic system, the magic elixir upon which progress and all good things depend ultimately. But one man's lifeblood is another man's cancer.

High school seniors should receive help in how to think about a student loan and how to make sure that the education bought with the loan offers good prospects for repayment.

It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe to God for any blessing, is, that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.

Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.

For the very top earners, vision and inspiration are essential. You need those to become the next Steve Jobs, but perhaps not to be the highest paid dentist in Beverly Hills.

Wealth comes from successful individual efforts to please one's fellow man ... that's what competition is all about: "outpleasing" your competitors to win over the consumers.

Increased jobs are the consequence of increased trade. Increasing jobs more than output implies a fall in productivity and standards of living. That surely cannot be our goal.

The economic repercussions of a stock market crash depend less on the severity of the crash itself than on the response of economic policymakers, particularly central bankers.

Whenever the current of money is forcibly stopped, and when money is prevented from settling at its just level, there are no limits to the possible variations of the exchange.

Expansions do not die of old age. The probability of recession in the following year is the same for a three-year-old expansion as it is for a five- or six-year-old expansion.

Forecasting is a maddening occupation. It is always fascinating and exciting and rewarding. yet it is also regularly exasperating and infuriating, occasionally even deranging.

Nausea is a normal but unpleasant effect of pregnancy and a really good sign that it is going well. Women who experience nausea in early pregnancy are less likely to miscarry.

The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule.

The big majority of Americans, who are comparatively well-off, have developed an ability to have enclaves of people living in the greatest misery almost without noticing them.

It is one thing to tell the citizens of some faraway country to go to hell, but it is another to do the same to your own citizens, who are supposedly your ultimate sovereigns.

There is no escape from the vast imbalances in international trade and finance. They will be corrected, sooner or later, by the inexorable principles that govern human action.

I had always had a deep interest in social science, history. So even when I was in high school, I was debating, and in college debating, and interested in contemporary events.

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