Economics Quotes - Page 10

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  Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.

  Herbert Hoover

  Children, Blessed, Government

  Herbert Hoover (1938). “Addresses upon the American road”

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• We have to shift our emphasis from economic efficiency and materialism towards a sustainable quality of life and to healing of our society, of our people and our ecological systems.

  Janet Holmes a Court

  Life, Business, Healing

  "Visions: Turkish Earthquake - an Islamic apocalyptic sign? The dream of Janet Holmes a' Court and a republican prophet - John Dunmore Lang". Interview with John Cleary, www.abc.net.au. August 25, 1999.

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• The world economy is in a nosedive, and understanding what I call "depression economics" - the weird world you get into when even a zero interest rate isn't low enough, and a messed-up financial system is dragging down the real economy - is essential if we're going to avoid the worst.

  Paul Krugman

  Zero, Real, Understanding

  "Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on the Economy". Live chat, www.washingtonpost.com. December 15, 2008.

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• [E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Law, Long

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

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• The true law of economics is chance, and we learned people arbitrarily seize on a few moments and establish them as laws.

  Karl Marx

  Law, People, Chance

  Karl Marx (1975). “Early writings”, Vintage

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• Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.

  James Madison

  Wisdom, Lying, Men

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Men, Design, Liberty

  "The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Chapter 5: "The Fatal Conceit", 1988.

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• I believe in market economics. But to paraphrase Churchill - who said this about democracy and political regimes - a market economy might be the worst economic regime available, apart from the alternatives. I believe that people react to incentives, that incentives matter, and that prices reflect the way things should be allocated. But I also believe that market economies sometimes have market failures, and when these occur, there's a role for prudential - not excessive - regulation of the financial system.

  Nouriel Roubini

  Believe, People, Political

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• Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits-a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Taken, Animal, Average

  "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money". Book by John Maynard Keynes, book 4, chapter 12, section 7, p. 161, February, 1936.

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• I expect to see the State, which is in a position to calculate the marginal efficiency of capital-goods on long views and on the basis of the general social advantage, taking an ever greater responsibility for directly organizing investments.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Philosophy, Responsibility, Views

  John Maynard Keynes (1988). “Keynes and Public Policy After Fifty Years: Theories and method”, Edward Elgar Pub

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• A collapse in U.S. stock prices certainly would cause a lot of white knuckles on Wall Street. But what effect would it have on the broader U.S. economy? If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.

  Ben Bernanke

  Wall, White, Doe

  "A Crash Course for Central Bankers" by Ben Bernanke, foreignpolicy.com. November 20, 2009.

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• He had one illusion - France; and one disillusion - mankind, including Frenchmen.

  John Maynard Keynes

  France, Illusion, Mankind

  The Economic Consequences of the Peace ch. 3 (1919)

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• It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists present their truths. It is often complained that demagogues can be more plausible in putting forward economic nonsense from the platform than the honest men who try to show what is wrong with it.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Philosophy, Men, Errors

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.14, Crown Business

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• Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Government, Home Economics, Employment

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Entrepreneurial creation is the generation, de novo, of novelty and surprise- freedom of choice originating in the world of ideas, and imagination beyond all concern with chemicals. The contrary view- that all ideas are determined by material relationships- is the materialist superstition.

  George Gilder

  Views, Ideas, Imagination

  George Gilder (2013). “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World”, p.92, Regnery Publishing

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• In an information economy, entrepreneurs master the science of information in order to overcome the laws of the purely physical sciences. They can succeed because of the surprising power of the laws of information, which are conducive to human creativity. The central concept of information theory is a measure of freedom of choice. The principle of matter, on the other hand, is not liberty but limitation- it has weight and occupies space.

  George Gilder

  Creativity, Hands, Order

  George Gilder (2013). “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World”, p.20, Regnery Publishing

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• This dilettantish inability to comprehend the essential issues of the conduct of production affairs is not only manifested in the writings of Marx and Engels. It permeates no less the contributions of contemporary pseudo-economics.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Writing, Issues, Liberty

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• The most important feature of an information economy, in which information is defined as surprise, is the overthrow, not the attainment, of equilibrium. The science that we have come to know as information theory establishes the supremacy of the entrepreneur because it appreciates the powerful connection between destruction and what Schumpeter described as "creative destruction," between chaos and creativity.

  George Gilder

  Powerful, Creativity, Appreciate

  George Gilder (2013). “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World”, p.33, Regnery Publishing

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• Entropy is Janus-faced. Its upside surprises are redemptive and favorable to freedom. It is freedom of choice. But the carrier itself requires constant vigilance against entropic noise. Order is not spontaneous, but it is a necessary condition for all the surprises of freedom and opportunity.

  George Gilder

  Opportunity, Order, Choices

  George Gilder (2013). “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World”, p.84, Regnery Publishing

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• The unpopularity of economics is the result of its analysis of the effects of privileges. It is impossible to invalidate the economists demonstration that all privileges hurt the interests of the rest of the nation or at least a great part of it.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Hurt, Liberty, Privilege

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• The book, as it stands, seems to me to be one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely a sound proposition in it beginning with page 45 [Hayek provided historical background up to page 45; after that came his theoretical model], and yet it remains a book of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Mistake, Book, Historical

  John Maynard Keynes, Royal Economic Society (Great Britain) (1971). “The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: The general theory and after: pt. 1, Preparation”

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• The philosophy commonly called individualism is a philosophy of social cooperation and the progressive intensification of the social nexus.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Philosophy, Liberty, Cooperation

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Human Action”, p.188, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by capitalism.

  Joan Robinson

  Capitalism

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• It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Math, Science, Clear

  1871 The Theory of Political Economy

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• The first commandment of economics is: Grow. Grow forever. Companies get bigger. National economies need to swell by a certain percent each year. People should want more, make more, earn more, spend more - ever more.
  The first commandment of the Earth is: enough. Just so much and no more. Just so much soil. Just so much water. Just so much sunshine. Everything born of the Earth grows to its appropriate size and then stops.

  Donella Meadows

  Sunshine, Years, People

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