Quotes About Economics

The receptionist's salary, on the other hand, was taxed at almost twice that rate once FICA was included. From Buffett's perspective, the discrepancy was

Between 1971 and 2001, while the median wage and salary income of the average worker showed literally no gain, the income of the top hundredth of a percent went up almost 500 percent.

Still, for both policy and political reasons, I felt that progressives couldn't afford to ignore economics. Those of us who believed in the government's ability to solve big problems had an obligation to pay attention to the real-world impact of our decisions and not just trust in the goodness of our intentions.

like most wealthy Americans, almost all his income came from dividends and capital gains, investment income that since 2003 has been taxed at only 15 percent.

Some economists argue that the apparent paradox rests on an illusion: there is no real 'labor shortage,' only a shortage of people willing to work at the wages currently being offered. You might as well talk about a 'Lexus shortage' — which there is, in a sense, for anyone unwilling to pay $40,000 for a car.

Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow. You don't need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high.

Si hablamos en términos globales, el mayor obstáculo para la felicidad es la pobreza. Las encuestas sobre felicidad, hasta donde podemos confiar en ellas, muestran siempre que los países más felices del mundo suelen ser los más ricos. Estados Unidos está en el puesto 23 y el Reino Unido en el 41, por ejemplo; mientras que la India aparece en el nada halagüeño puesto 125 (de 178 países).

Los regímenes estalinistas tenían que apoyarse en el aparato del Estado (escuelas, policía secreta, etcétera) para imponer el optimismo, pero las democracias capitalistas confían en el mercado para que les haga el trabajo.

1997 there were only thirty-six such units for every one hundred families

Most people no longer believe that buying sneakers made in Asian sweatshops is a kindness to those child laborers. Farming is similar. In every country on earth, the most human scenario for farmers is likely to be feeding those who live nearby--if international markets would allow them to do it. Food transport has become a bizarre and profitable economic equation that's no longer really about feeding anyone ... If you care about farmers, let the potatoes stay home.

Thirty or forty bucks an hour, old men still talked like those were the days Jesus walked among us throwing around hundred-dollar bills.

rich." She stood up and fluffed herself. "My family has more money than you can shake a stick at." Mr. Scary stared at her a real long time. "Yes, well, fortunately, we don't need to be rich to shop at the gift shop, Lucille," he said at last. "Everything there is very affordable. Does everyone know what affordable means?" "I do! I do!

It was a symbiotic division of labor that would have made a classical economist flush with pride.

ECONOMISTS POINT OUT THAT THE QUALITY OF ANY GIVEN OPTION can not be assessed in isolation from its alternatives. One of the "costs" of any option involves passing up the opportunities that a different option would have afforded. This is referred to as an opportunity cost.

Notice that the curve falls steeply at the beginning and then gradually levels off. This reflects what might be called the "decreasing marginal disutility of losses.

When Nobel Prize–winning economist and psychologist Herbert Simon initially introduced the idea of "satisficing" in the 1950s, he suggested that when all the costs (in time, money, and anguish) involved in getting information about all the options are factored in, satisficing is, in fact, the maximizing strategy.

As the magnitude of the gain increases, the amount of additional satisfaction people get out of each additional unit decreases. The shape of this curve conforms to what economists have long talked about as the "law of diminishing marginal utility." As the rich get richer, each additional unit of wealth satisfies them less.

According to standard economic assumptions, the only opportunity costs that should figure into a decision are the ones associated with the next-best alternative.

In 1860, the value of Southern slaves was three times the amount invested in manufacturing or railroads, representing more capital than any other American asset except land, but instead of the slave-based, cotton-growing South, the industrial North triumphed.

The fundamental fact about him was that he viewed the world through Marxism.

By now I hope you're convinced that, as I've said, nothing is as fast as the speed of trust. Nothing is as profitable as the economics of trust. Nothing is as relevant as the pervasive impact of trust. And the dividends of trust can significantly enhance the quality of every relationship on every level of your life.

I have found this to be true in organizations as well as in individual lives. In an organization, the physical dimension is expressed in economic terms. The mental or psychological dimension deals with the recognition, development, and use of talent. The social/emotional dimension has to do with human relations, with how people are treated. And the spiritual dimension deals with finding meaning through purpose or contribution and through organizational integrity.

The decreasing principal has decreasing power to produce interest or income.

Mellon was right," he said. "Raising tax rates does not raise revenues. In fact, just the opposite happens. The rich just find a way to legally shelter their money and avoid the higher taxes. And who could blame them. But every time we've lowered tax rates, revenues rose. Harding. Coolidge. Hoover. Kennedy. Reagan. Bush. They all got that.