Economist Quotes - Page 7

• Many progressive economists insist that gold is now in essentially the same position as silver and that the arguments the simon-pure gold advocates use against the white metal can be directed with equal effect against their own fetish.

  Benjamin Graham

  White, Gold, Use

  "World Commodities and World Currencies". Book by Benjamin Graham. Chapter IX, Commodities, Gold, Credit as Money, p. 100, 1944.

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• It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

  Benjamin Graham

  Needs, Including, Misfortunes

  "World Commodities and World Currencies". Book by Benjamin Graham, Chapter X, Commodity Unit Stabilization, p. 109, 1944.

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• Until the Great Depression, most economists clung to a vision of capitalism as a perfect or nearly perfect system. That vision wasn’t sustainable in the face of mass unemployment, but as memories of the Depression faded, economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets.

  Paul Krugman

  Memories, Perfect, Vision

  "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?". www.nytimes.com. September 2, 2009.

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• Congress has always had a soft spot for "experts" who tell members what they want to hear, whether it's supply-side economists declaring that tax cuts increase revenue or climate-change skeptics insisting that global warming is a myth.

  Paul Krugman

  Cutting, Climate, Experts

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• Economists have provided capitalists with a comforting concept called the "free market." It does not describe any part of reality, at any place or time. It's a mantra conveniently invoked when it is proposed that government do something the faithful don't like, and just as conveniently ignored whenever they want government to do something for them.

  Edward S. Herman

  Reality, Government, Comforting

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• What our economists call a depressed area almost always turns out to be a cleaner, freer, more livable place than most.

  Edward Abbey

  Turns, Cleaners, Areas

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.51, RosettaBooks

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• Governments, political parties, pressure groups, and the bureaucrats of the educational hierarchy think they can avoid the inevitable consequences of unsuitable measures by boycotting and silencing the independent economists. But truth persists and works, even if nobody is left to utter it.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Educational, Party, Independent

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• There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?

  Thomas Sowell

  Government, Two, Doe

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• The economists who have put the spotlight on teacher quality are the ones who most misunderstand it.

  Andy Hargreaves

  Leadership, Teacher, Learning

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• Despite the high salaries involved, employing economists is a cost-effective way for banks, and stockbrokers to secure exposure in the media.

  Paul Ormerod

  Media, Salary, Cost

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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• But Adam Smith was a philosopher as well as well as an economist, famous in his time as much for his Theory of Moral Sentiments as for The Wealth of Nations. And as he understood so well, society is more than the sum of its individual parts.

  Paul Ormerod

  Philosopher, Moral, Wealth

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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• U.S. Internal Revenue Service: an agency modeled after the revenue raising concepts of the 19th century economist, Jesse James.

  Robert Breault

  Agency, Century, Taxes

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• Our biggest challenge is to eliminate the popular perception that economists don't have anything useful to say.

  Mark Zandi

  Challenges, Perception

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• They called me the sexiest economist in America, and that was years ago, when I had hair and body mass and my teeth were shiny.

  Mark Zandi

  Hair, Years, America

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• Economists, on the whole, think well of what they do themselves and much less well of what their professional colleagues do.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Thinking, Scholarship, Colleagues

  John Kenneth Galbraith (2015). “The New Industrial State”, p.489, Princeton University Press

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• Economists are about as useful as astrologers in predicting the future (and, like astrologers, they never let failure on one occasion diminish certitude on the next).

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Next, Economics, Predicting The Future

  "A Clinton Report Card, So Far" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., www.nytimes.com. April 11, 1993.

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• I read 'Time', 'Newsweek' and 'The Economist'.

  Nelson DeMille

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• If economists were doctors, they would today be mired in malpractice suits.

  John Ralston Saul

  Money, Doctors, Today

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

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• I suspect that one of capitalism's crucial assets derives from the fact that the imagination of economists, including its critics, lags well behind its own inventiveness, the arbitrariness of its undertaking and the ruthlessness of the way in which it proceeds.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Imagination, Lag, Ruthlessness

  "Capitalism has learned to create host organisms". www.theguardian.com. October 18, 2011.

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• In 1925, when Britain went back to the gold standard, that was supported by the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Bank of England, the civil service, the CBI, the TUC, the Times, the Economist; that consensus was very strong.

  Ed Balls

  Strong, Party, Gold

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• No one knows anything about economics. It's the great lie of the economists. By contrast in football people might have contrasting opinions, each of which has some validity. But the economists always speak in conditionals - what a mess.

  Vicente del Bosque

  Football, Lying, People

  "Vicente del Bosque: Putting regional tensions aside has united Spain" by Jimmy Burns, www.theguardian.com. September 7, 2012.

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• Over the last decade, - economists seemed to share a broad consensus about economic policy, with the old splits between monetarists and Keynesians apparently being settled by events. But the Great Recession of the last two years has changed everything.

  Gavyn Davies

  Years, Two, Events

  "The great economics rift reopens" by Gavyn Davies, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

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• It affects every aspect of our lives, is often said to be the root of all evil, and the analysis of the world that it makes possible - what we call 'the economy' - is so important to us that economists have become the high priests of our society. Yet, oddly, there is absolutely no consensus among economists about what money really is.

  David Graeber

  Roots, Evil, Important

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• Economists are very good at saying that something cannot go on forever, but not so good at saying when it will stop.

  Herbert Stein

  Forever, Goes On, Very Good

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• Until the 19th century, the term 'to consume' was used mainly in its negative connotations of  'destruction' and 'waste'.  Tuberculosis was known as 'consumption', that is, a wasting disease.  Then  economists came up with a bizarre theory, which has become widely accepted, according to which the basis of a sound economy is a continual increase in the consumption (that is, waste) of  goods

  Petr Skrabanek

  Tuberculosis, Disease, Waste

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