Economics and Economists
Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.
—ALFRED MARSHALL
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If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
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Most of economics, as taught, is a form of brain damage.
—ERNST F. SCHUMACHER, Small Is Beautiful (1973)
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Economics is meant to be useful.
—RICHARD LAYARD and ALAN A. WALTERS
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The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters.
—JEAN-PAUL KAUFFMANN
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But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
—FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT
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Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
—JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
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[S]ince consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.
—ERNST F. SCHUMACHER
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Harry Truman once said he wanted a one-armed economist who didn’t always say, “On the other hand.”
—LAURENCE J. PETER
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Ask five economists and you’ll get five different answers—six if one went to Harvard.
—EDGAR RUSSELL FIEDLER
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Ninety five per cent of economics is common sense deliberately made complicated.
—HA-JOON CHANG
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Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wicked of men will do the most wicked of things for the greatest good of everyone.
—JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
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I am now a Keynesian in economics.
—RICHARD NIXON, after taking the US off the gold standard
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We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
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The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
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The truth is we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.
—WOODROW WILSON
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There is a serious tendency toward capitalism among the well-to-do peasants.
—MAO ZEDONG
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The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
—FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK
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At its core, belief in capitalism is belief in mankind.
—JOHAN NORBERG, In Defense of Global Capitalism (2003)
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Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.
—HOWARD ZINN, A People’s History of the United States (1995)
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It is just as illogical to suggest abolishing capitalism because it hasn’t abolished poverty as it would be to suggest abolishing the churches because the churches haven’t abolished sin.
—C. DONALD DALLAS, The Forbes Book of Business Quotations (1997)
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[T]oday we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality . . . masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized.
—POPE FRANCIS
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There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.
—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
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[W]hat an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.
—JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
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[S]ome people continue to defend trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.
—POPE FRANCIS
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The Stock Market and Wall Street
The United States has a new weapon. It destroys people, but leaves buildings still standing. It’s called the stock market.
—JAY LENO
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Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
—JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
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WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every successful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.
—AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
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One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute.
—WILLIAM FEATHER
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The greater fool theory (GFT) refers to those who buy an investment based on the premise they will be able to sell it at a profit to a “greater fool.” Many investors subscribe to this theory, but don’t know they are engaging in it. In an ironic twist, they become the “greater fool.”
—DANIEL R. SOLIN
[S]ocialism is more a matter of equal redistribution of wealth and creation of a welfare state. In order for a welfare state to be created, taxes must be higher so the government can cover its expenses.
—MARKO CEPERKOVIC
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The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.
—MARGARET THATCHER (attributed)
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Socialism only works in two places: Heaven, where they don’t need it, and Hell, where they already have it.
— RONALD REAGAN
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Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
—THOMAS SOWELL
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As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
—GEORGE ORWELL, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
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Socialism had its sixty years, and it failed miserably.
—EUGENE FAMA
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In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
—KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
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A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered in a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and Czar, Meternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police spies.
—KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
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If Karl, instead of writing a lot about capital, had made a lot of it, it would have been much better.
—KARL MARX’S MOTHER, HENRIETTA (attributed)
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Capitalism, it is said, is a system wherein man exploits man. And communism—is vice versa.
—DANIEL BELL
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The principal lesson Soviet economic planning has to teach us is how it should not be done.
—TAYAR ZAVALANI
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The National Debt, a.k.a. The Federal Debt
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
—JOHN ADAMS
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A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
—ALEXANDER HAMILTON
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I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse, and in a Republican Government a greater curse than any other.
—JAMES MADISON
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We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
—RONALD REAGAN
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I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.
—BARACK OBAMA
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Mr. Obama denounced the $2.3 trillion added to the national debt on Mr. Bush’s watch as “deficits as far as the eye can see.” But Mr. Obama’s budget adds $9.3 trillion to the debt over the next ten years. What happened to Obama the deficit hawk?
—KARL ROVE
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The United States has a history of unusual concern about federal (although not state) budget deficits, going back to the earliest days after adoption of the Constitution . . . deficits are a deeply rooted symbol in American history, the meaning of which has changed over time, but that continually relates to distrust of the national government.
—DANIEL SHAVIRO, Do Deficits Matter? (1997)
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No pecuniary consideration is more urgent than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt; on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON
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The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own. The national defense must be provided for as well as the support of Government; but both should be accomplished as much as possible by immediate taxes, and as little as possible by loans.
—JOHN ADAMS
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