Quotes About Economics

Resultó desconcertante para muchos lectores de La riqueza de las naciones descubrir que no es el altruismo ni la caridad, sino más bien el egoísmo, el motor del progreso:

Los grandes enemigos del mercado libre son los privilegios, el monopolio, los subsidios, los controles, las prohibiciones.

Toda la simpatía de Adam Smith se vuelca hacia las colonias inglesas en Norteamérica, los futuros Estados Unidos. Explica que han prosperado mucho más que las de España y Portugal porque Inglaterra les dio más libertad para producir y comerciar, a diferencia del severo control que Lisboa y Madrid imponían a sus colonias. Y, una vez más, subraya que las limitaciones al comercio constituyen «un crimen contra la humanidad».

El efecto práctico de esta creencia es el socialismo (que Hayek identifica con la planificación económica y el dirigismo estatista), un sistema que, para imponerse, necesita la abolición de la libertad, de la propiedad privada, del respeto de los contratos, de la independencia de la justicia y la limitación de la libre iniciativa individual.

Nadie, ni siquiera Von Mises, ha reseñado mejor que Hayek los beneficios en todos los órdenes que trajo al ser humano aquel sistema de intercambios que nadie inventó, que fue naciendo y perfeccionándose a resultas del azar y, sobre todo, de la irrupción de ese accidente en la historia humana que es la libertad.

Selon Hayek, tout socialisme, lorsqu'il active la planification économique et met fin à la concurrence et à la propriété privée, établit automatiquement un mécanisme qui, à plus ou moins brève échéance, liquide le pluralisme politique et les libertés, que les planificateurs le veuillent ou non.

La igualdad ante la ley y la igualdad de oportunidades no significan la igualdad en los ingresos y en la renta

Repartir la pobreza no trae riqueza a nadie y sólo contribuye a universalizar la pobreza.

degradó cuando aquéllos, que recibían salarios de acuerdo al número de palabras que usaban en sus peroratas, empezaron a hinchar sus discursos para ganar más.

Llama al diezmo que se paga a la Iglesia un impuesto «puramente negativo» pues no genera beneficio alguno ni al propietario, ni al arrendatario, ni al soberano, sólo a la Iglesia (lo que confirma el tibio creyente que era Adam Smith).

Profit is the universal trigger of innovation.

We have nobody in Washington that sits back and says, 'You're not going to raise that fucking price!'" And the Chinese: "Listen, you motherfuckers, we're going to tax you 25 percent!

The arts community is generally dominated by liberals because if you are concerned mainly with painting or sculpture, you don't have time to study how the world works. And if you have no understanding of economics, strategy, history and politics, then naturally you would be a liberal.

Venice manipulated markets by controlling production. In the late thirteenth century, wishing to raise the world market price, Venice had all saltworks in Crete destroyed and banned the local production of salt.

General Motors, ITT, and Ford come most readily to mind as having plants protected by Hitler

By 1937, every British trawler had a wireless, electricity, and an echometer - the forerunner of sonar. If getting into fishing had required the kind of capital in past centuries that it cost in the twentieth century, cod would never have built a nation of middle-class, self-made entrepreneurs in New England.

We knew well how much these people were paying for cocaine - and that the more coke cost, the more people wanted it. We applied the same market plan to our budding catering operation, along with a similar pricing structure, and business was suddenly very, very, good.

O peixe é um negócio complicado. O snapper vermelho pode custar ao chefe apenas oito euros por quilo, mas esse valor inclui as espinhas, a cabeça, as escamas e tudo o mais que é cortado e deitado fora. Pronto, o preço real de cada filete limpo custou ao chefe mais do dobro daquela quantia e, assim, ele realmente prefere vendê-lo a deitá-lo no lixo. Se ainda não cheirar mal na segunda-feira à noite, você irá comê-lo.

Apparently, only Communists get to make money in Cambodia.

Expense Ratio. This expense is the main "price tag"—the number they want us focused on.

Transaction Costs. Transaction costs are a broad, sweeping category and can be broken down further into categories such as brokerage commissions, market impact costs (the cost of moving the market as mutual funds trade massive market-moving positions), and spread costs (the difference between the bid-and-ask or the buy-and-sell price of a stock).

Follow the money. Always follow the money.

In fact, the culmination of his findings on the economic machine is packed into a brilliant 30-minute video that, in my opinion, should be required viewing for every American!

Shiller found that when he adjusted for inflation, US housing prices have been nearly flat for a century! He exploded one of the biggest myths of our time: that home prices keep going up and up. "Unless there's a bubble," he told me. And we all know what eventually happens to bubbles.