Quotes About Economics

In the US from 1980 to 2011, it became more than twice as expensive for Americans for purchase fresh fruit and vegetables compared to purchasing sugary carbonated beverages. Tomatoes and broccoli are far more expensive on average than they used to be for American shoppers. Energy-dense foods such as cakes and burgers have become far cheaper now in comparison to fruits and vegetables.

There is simply too much to think about. It is hopeless -- too many kinds of special preparation are required. In electronics, in economics, in social analysis, in history, in psychology, in international politics, most of us are, given the oceanic proliferating complexity of things, paralyzed by the very suggestion that we assume responsibility for so much. This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive.

People reserve their best thinking for their professional specialties and, next in line, for serious matters confronting the alert citizen--economics, politics, the disposal of nuclear waste, etc. The day's work done, they want to be entertained.

That's because they don't know,' said Tyburn. 'It's like economics. Everybody's got a theory, and some people make it their religion.

Even in the 1980s your average young archaeologist would have had difficulty raising capital for a house. I knew this because it's one of the things archaeologists will tell you about, at length, at the slightest provocation.

Feeding the starving poor only increases their number.

The Double Cross system was now not only self-financing but profitable, to Masterman's delight: "The actual cash supplied by the Germans to maintain their and our system between 1940 and 1945 was something in the region of £85,000"—the equivalent of more than £4.5 million today.

I had become a Great Depression buff in the way that other people are Civil War buffs, reading not only about the economics of the period but about the politics, sociology, and history as well.

Economists are criticized for not being able to predict the future, but, because the data are incomplete and subject to revision, we cannot even be sure what happened in the recent past. Noisy data make effective policymaking all the more difficult.

They also reminded me of a story Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher included in one of his speeches about the early nineteenth-century French diplomat Talleyrand and his archrival, Prince Metternich of Austria. When Talleyrand died, Metternich was reported to have said, "I wonder what he meant by that?" It seemed that no matter what I said or how plainly I said it, the markets tried to divine some hidden meaning.

Why would a strong bank pay the penalty rate if it didn't have to?

Politicians will have to do the heavy lifting here, because for the most part these are not issues that can be addressed by the Fed or monetary policy.)

are comparatively less well-off

The market thinks Bernanke is a rock star!" Bob Pisani of CNBC declared (prematurely, to say the least).

I was neither devotedly pro- nor anti-Keynesian.

did a poor job of measuring and managing the risks they were taking on.

In retrospect I wonder whether I should have insisted earlier and more vigorously on persuading Congress to accept capital injections.

the reality is that globalization and international economic integration are too far advanced to be undone, except at very great cost.

arguing that its benefits usually outweigh the costs imposed on businesses and consumers.

I knew that psychological as well as economic factors motivate human behavior.

With the money supply no longer constrained by the amount of gold held by the government, deflation stopped almost immediately.

A coordinated rate cut presented tricky logistical problems.

It was premature to make a definitive judgment about the effects of QE2, but the early signs seemed promising.

I found myself becoming increasingly interested in the policy frameworks that central banks use, and in how those frameworks might be improved.