Quotes About Economics

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder. (To Canadian Parliament)

Yet each country had items that the other needed. The Arridi had reserves of red gold and iron in their deserts that the Toscans required to finance and equip their large armies. Even more important, Toscans had become inordinately fond of kafay, the rich coffee grown by the Arridi.

interest rates, foreign exchange

To an economist, no action is really a mistake, it's just an optimal answer to a different question.

Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say that the response is ill advised.

Inflation does not lubricate trade but by rescuing traders from their errors of optimism or stupidity.

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.

The individual serves the industrial system not by supplying it with savings and the resulting capital; he serves it by consuming its products.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

Under capitalism, man exploits man; while under socialism just the reverse is true.

If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).

The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.

Trickle-down theory - the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

The process by which money is created is so simple that the mind is repelled.

One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.

Customers deposit money in a bank for interest; the bank lends that money to other people at a higher rate of interest. This isn't glamorous or interesting, but then banking is not supposed to resemble base jumping or hip-hop.

Psychology looks at people from the inside. Economics looks at them from the outside.

the words lex monetae are really just a polite Latin way of saying, "Suck it, creditors.

Note that as the cost of beans goes up, the cost of your cup might actually go down, if your favorite café switches from the more expensive, subtler arabica beans to the cheaper, stronger robusta variety. This happened in lots of places during the great coffee-bean price spike of 2010–11, so if you started noticing a few years ago that your morning espresso was making you gibber, that's probably the reason.

In economics, models are spoken of as being made of physics when in truth they are made of Lego. They have that degree of provisionality and tentativeness and, importantly, rebuildability. There's a permanent invitation to take them apart and put them together again in a form that works better.

The economic metaphor came to be applied to every aspect of modern life, especially the areas where it simply didn't belong. In fields such as education, equality of opportunity, health, employee's rights, the social contract and culture, the first conversation to happen should be about values and principles; then you have the conversation about costs, and what you as a society can afford.

had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them; which, how it has done, I shall by and by show more at large.

And thus came in the use of money, some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports of life.