Quotes About Economics

The solution is not that people need to major in marketing in college, but that their liberal education should be more structured and demanding. Majors should have some required sequence of basic courses, as in economics.

One by one those capitalist countries which arrive at a complete impasse, take the road of fascism

El capitalismo es detestable. El comunismo es peor. El capitalismo te permite a un tiempo llevar vida de capitalista y renegar del capitalismo, mientras que el comunismo es por principio incompatible con cualquier forma de disidencia.

was not an economist. So, in thinking about how to solve the problem, I decided to start with the big picture. The root cause of inflation in Brazil was really very simple: The government spent more than it earned. When the budget turned up a big deficit every year, as it inevitably did, the government printed more money to cover the difference. Any grade-school student knows, however, that you can't just print endless amounts of cash without having something tangible to back it up.

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Capitalism is using its money we socialists throw it away.

On President Trump's on actually hurting Mexico with tariffs, "That might be his play, if we can ascribe any sophistication to it. That's a big if, because he may just be insane."

You can't have protectionism within a free trade agreement. It's an oxymoron."

I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political, or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, property, labor, exchange, capital, wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing—the solution of the social problem is in liberty.

Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those which are seen, and those which are not seen.

How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it does not contain—prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science, religion—should ever have gained ground in the political world?

You compare the nation to a parched piece of land and the tax to a life-giving rain. So be it. But you should also ask yourself where this rain comes from, and whether it is not precisely the tax that draws the moisture from the soil and dries it up. You should also ask yourself further whether the soil receives more of this precious water from the rain than it loses by the evaporation?

The profit of the one is the profit of the other.

To take by violence is not to produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing, this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.

When it is a question of taxes, gentlemen, prove their usefulness by reasons with some foundation, but not with that lamentable assertion: "Public spending keeps the working class alive." It makes the mistake of covering up a fact that it is essential to know: namely, that public spending is always a substitute for private spending, and that consequently it may well support one worker in place of another but adds nothing to the lot of the working class taken as a whole.

Our adversaries believe that an activity that is neither subsidized nor regulated is abolished. We believe the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in mankind. Ours is in mankind, not in the legislator.

For when a farmer borrows fifty francs to buy a plow, it is not actually the fifty francs that is lent to him; it is the plow. And when a merchant borrows twenty thousand francs to buy a house, it is not the twenty thousand francs he owes; it is the house.

Bastiat was a nineteenth century French political economist who dedicated the last years of his short life to proving that government by its nature possesses neither the moral authority to intervene in our freedom nor the practical ability to create prosperity through its intervention.

it cannot fail to be admitted, that when protectionism raises the price of things, the consumer loses the difference. But, then, it is said, national labor is the gainer. No, it is not the gainer; for since the Act, it is no more encouraged than it was before, to the amount of fifteen francs. The only thing is that, since the Act, the fifteen francs of John Q. Citizen go to the metal trade, while before it was put in force, they were divided between the ironmonger and the bookseller.

it is well known that large numbers of poor people attribute their poverty to what they call the tyranny of capital; meaning thereby the unwillingness of the owners of capital to allow others to use it without security for its safe return and compensation for its use.

at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing—the solution of the social problem is in liberty. And

The separation of employments, the division of labor, which results from the faculty of exchanging, causes each man, instead of struggling on his own account to overcome all the obstacles that surround him, to combat only one of them; he overcomes that one not for himself but for his fellow men, who in turn render him the same service.

It is all in vain; you cannot give money to some members of the community but by taking it from others. If you desire to ruin the tax-payer, you may do so. But at least do not banter him by saying: "In order to compensate your losses, I take from you again as much as I have taken from you already.

no one borrows money for the sake of the money itself; money is only the medium by which to obtain possession of products.