Economist Quotes - Page 9

• Everything is possible, from angels to demons to economists and politicians.

  Paulo Coelho

  Angel, Demon, Politician

  "Question time". Interview with Hannah Pool, www.theguardian.com. March 18, 2009.

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• Lift the curtain and 'the State' reveals itself as a little group of fallible men in Whitehall, making guesses about the future, influenced by political prejudices and partisan prejudices, and working on projections drawn from the past by a staff of economists.

  Enoch Powell

  Past, Men, Political

  John Enoch Powell, John Wood (1970). “Freedom and reality”, Arlington House Publishers

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• Even if the constants which economists wish to determine were less numerous, and the method of experiment more accessible, we should still be faced with the fact that the constants themselves are different at different times. The gravitation constant is the same always. But the economic constants-these elasticities of demand and supply-depending, as they do, upon human consciousness, are liable to vary. The constitution of the atom, as it were, and not merely its position, changes under the influence of environment.

  Arthur Cecil Pigou

  Wish, Demand, Facts

  "The Economics of Welfare". Book by Arthur Cecil Pigou (4th edition, 1932), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 4, 1920.

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• It's usually much easier for people with professional skills to find work for themselves or even possibly to continue with their old employer, but on a part-time basis. Some labor economists predict that in about five years there will be a labor shortage in the United States and that demand for retirees to work part-time will grow naturally. I don't know if that's true or just wishful predicting.

  Hedrick Smith

  People, Labor

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• Only the free-wheeling artist-explorer, non-academic, scientist-philosopher, mechanic, economist-poet who has never waited for patron-starting and accrediting of his co-ordinate capabilities holds the prime initiative today.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Artist, Today, Philosopher

  R. Buckminster Fuller (2009). “Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure”, p.164, Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

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• After taking risk into account, do more managers than you’d see by chance outperform with persistence? Virtually every economist who studied this question answers with a resounding 'no.'

  Eugene Fama

  Persistence, Risk, Answers

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• Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Philosophy, Increase, Should

  Oliver Goldsmith (1854). “Enquiry into the present state of polite learning. The citizen of the world”, p.234

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• History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.

  Edward Gibbon

  Political, Experience, Should

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• One of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson's investment theory of politics, as he calls it - very outstanding political economist - which essentially - I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Political, Groups

  "Noam Chomsky on the Global Economic Crisis, Healthcare, US Foreign Policy and Resistance to American Empire". "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. April 13, 2009.

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• Be saving, but not at the cost of all liberality. Have the soul of a king and the hand of a wise economist.

  Joseph Joubert

  Wise, Kings, Hands

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a willful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost.

  Vivienne Westwood

  Confusion, Environmental, Cost

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• Many scientists and economists also say putting a price on carbon through carbon taxes and/or cap-and-trade is necessary.

  David Suzuki

  Scientist, Caps, Carbon Tax

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• Capitalism with near-full employment was an impressive spectacle. But a growth in wealth is not at all the same thing as reducing poverty. A universal paean was raised in praise of growth. Growth was going to solve all problems. No need to bother about poverty. Growth will lift up the bottom and poverty will disappear without any need to pay attention to it. The economists, who should have known better, fell in with the same cry.

  Joan Robinson

  Should Have, Growth, Needs

  Joan Robinson (2014). “Contributions to Modern Economics”, p.9, Academic Press

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• Ever since economists revealed how much universities contribute to economic growth, politicians have paid close attention to higher education.

  Derek Bok

  Growth, Attention, Politician

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• Politicians, bureaucrats, editors, new commentators, 'economists' teachers,' and other word artists who denounce private enterprise and praise socialism are their own worst enemies...these attackers are unwittingly destroying the sources of their own livelihood. They kill the geese that lay the golden eggs - and don't know it!

  Leonard Read

  Teacher, Artist, Editors

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• A good rule of thumb is as follows: If the numbers come from somebody wearing a tie (Wall Street economist or analyst, industry public relations department, captive think tank academic and so on), you ought to be very skeptical. By design messages from these people are intended to move markets, move merchandise and/or move public policy and are not a comment on the state of the physical universe.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Wall, Moving, Thinking

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• In short, I do not write for mathematicians, nor as a mathematician, but as an economist wishing to convince other economists that their science can only be satisfactorily treated on an explicitly mathematical basis.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Writing, Wish, Mathematical

  William Stanley Jevons (1970). “The Theory of Political Economy”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• The study of economic organization commonly proceeds as though market and administrative modes of organization were disjunct. Market organi­zation is the province of economists. Inter­nal organization is the concern of organization theory specialist. And never the twain shall meet.

  Oliver E. Williamson

  Organization, Study, Economic

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• The first proponent of cortical memory networks on a major scale was neither a neuroscientist nor a computer scientist but .. a Viennes economist: Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992). A man of exceptionally broad knowledge and profound insight into the operation of complex systems, Hayek applied such insight with remarkable success to economics (Nobel Prize, 1974), sociology, political science, jurisprudence, evolutionary theory, psychology, and brain science (Hayek, 1952).

  Joaquin Fuster

  Memories, Men, Profound

  "Memory in the Cerebral Cortex: An Empirical Approach to Neural Networks in the Human and Nonhuman Primate". Book by Joaquin M. Fuster, 1995.

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• Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Theory, Difficulty, Application

  William Stanley Jevons (1871). “The Theory of Political Economy”, p.106

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• As there are so many who talk prose without knowing it, or, again, who syllogize without having the least idea what a syllogism is, so economists have long been mathematicians without being aware of the fact.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Ideas, Knowing, Long

  William Stanley Jevons (1970). “The Theory of Political Economy”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside,once and forever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian school. Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise. The truth is with the French school, and the sooner we recognize the fact, the better it will be for all the world, except perhaps the few writers who are far too committed to the old erroneous doctrines to allow for renunciation.

  William Stanley Jevons

  School, Forever, Fool

  William Stanley Jevons (1879). “Political Economy”

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• My principal work now lies in tracing out the exact nature and conditions of utility. It seems strange indeed that economists have not bestowed more minute attention on a subject which doubtless furnishes the true key to the problems of economics.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Lying, Keys, Attention

  William Stanley Jevons (1871). “The Theory of Political Economy”, p.51

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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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• One intriguing subplot of the economic crisis is the failure of most economists to predict it. Here we have the most spectacular economic and financial crisis in decades - possibly since the Great Depression - and the one group that spends most of its waking hours analyzing the economy basically missed it.

  Robert J. Samuelson

  Groups, Analyzing, Waking

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