Quotes About Economics

The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives.

We can't do the same things the Yankees do. Given the economics, we'll lose.

But whether, for example, a coat can be exchanged for twenty yards of linen cloth or for forty yards is not a matter of chance, but depends upon objective conditions, upon the amount of socially necessary labor time contained in the coat and in the linen respectively.

Learn computer science. It's extraordinarily helpful. I like recommending learning economics as well so they think in terms of business, they have rational frameworks for looking at the world, but yeah, computer science is an amazing way to get into, even if you want to be CEO, having a tech background is helpful.

Yeah, you know, there's a difference between the textbook world that economists like to imagine, and the real world where real people have real feelings.

Ask me not, 'Are you rightwing,' but ask me 'Are you a committed believer in individual freedom, the values of the enlightenment?' Then, yeah, if being rightwing means believing Adam Smith was right, both in the 'Wealth of Nations' and the 'Theory of Moral Sentiments,' then I'm rightwing.

SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.

What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.

Still, most people don't have much money. So finding ways to come out a couple of thousand dollars ahead every year still matters.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

I predicted in 1950 that in five years, manufacturers the world over would be screaming for protection. It took only four years.

The minimum wage is something that F.D.R. put in place a long time ago during the Great Depression. I don't think it worked then. It didn't solve any problems then and it hasn't solved any problems in 50 years.

Demand is best measured in terms of spending. You know, I think in traditional economics, it's a mistake to measure it in terms of the quantity of goods.

If you have a traditional view of economics, you're probably thinking of Ben Bernanke making Fed policy, or the guys creating financial derivatives at Goldman Sachs.

Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest.

Since all power from the seventh century on was only legitimated by religion, political forces and economic interests pushed for the fabrication of false traditions.

Early economic theory was rooted in the Italian, French, and Spanish traditions, which were subjectivist oriented. Then it shifted onto the terrible path by Smith and Ricardo and the British classical tradition, which is 'objectivist' - values are in inherent in production.

Poor decision making in government; the tragedy of short-term economic thinking; our national housing crisis: these are real 21st Century problems for our country. They are problems that can only be solved by genuinely fearless thinking about our natural environment.

We have the most crude accounting tools. It's tragic because our accounts and our national arithmetic doesn't tell us the things that we need to know.

The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.

I was trained as an economic theorist; my job at MIT was as an economic theorist. At some level that's still part of my identity.

Basically, what Economic Hit Men are trained to do is to build up the American empire. To create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we've been very successful.

By a combination of formal training and self study, the latter continuing systematically well into the 1940s, I was able to gain a broad base of knowledge in economics and political science, together with reasonable skills in advanced mathematics, symbolic logic, and mathematical statistics.

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