Quotes from John Cassidy

Relying on the market to provide both private and public goods will always lead to underprovision of the latter.

Market failure isn't an intellectual curiosity. In many areas of the economy, such as health care, high technology, and finance, it is endemic.

The crisis is primarily, perhaps almost entirely, the consequence of decisions taken by private firms in an environment of minimal regulation

lack of firm knowledge rarely equates with complete ignorance.

But whenever a crisis hits, many of the biggest players—banks, investment banks, hedge funds—rush to reduce their exposures, causing liquidity to dry up. Where previously there was heterogeneity and diversity of opinion, now there is unanimity: everybody wants to get out.

We must look at the price system as . . . a mechanism for communicating information if we want to understand its real function," Hayek

The economy is an organic whole, not just a collection of individual parts. If there is a big disruption in one industry, it will inevitably spill over into others

Não falamos diretamente à sua humanidade, mas a seu egoísmo, e nunca falamos com eles a respeito das nossas necessidades, mas das vantagens que eles terão. Ninguém, a não ser um mendigo, prefere depender da bondade de seus concidadãos.

Economics, when you strip away the guff and the mathematical sophistry, is largely about incentives.