Quotes About Economics

In the early fifth century BC, a roll of papyrus, consisting of about twenty sheets, cost between one and three drachmas—that is, one to three days' wages for a semiskilled worker.

The Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk stated that the cultural and political level of a nation could be discerned by its interest rate: The more advanced the nation, the lower the loan rate.

economist Henri Truchy noted: We judged it better to content ourselves with the untroubled possession of the domestic market than to risk the hazards of the world market, and we built a solid fortress of tariffs. Within the boundaries of this limited, but assured market, the French live calmly, comfortably enough, and leaving to others the torment of great ambition, are no more than spectators in the struggles for economic supremacy.16

La mejor época posible para invertir es cuando el cielo amenaza tormenta, puesto que los inversores descontarán los ingresos futuros de las acciones a una tasa muy elevada.

The highly decentralized nature of the medieval world of Indian Ocean trade produced a bubbling stew of Darwinian economic competition, in which those states whose political "mutations" were best suited to trade and commerce thrived, and those whose institutions were not withered.

You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold

The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.

Increasing global inequalities fueled resistance to Western values. In 1960 the wealthiest 20 percent of the world's population earned about thirty times as much as the poorest 20 percent; in 1991 the wealthiest 20 percent earned sixty-one times as much. The successes of the most highly industrialized

Cotton Is King; or, The Economical Relations of Slavery.

When goods don't cross borders, armies will.

Thus, a battleship cost around £10m in 1940. Building that battleship today might cost £500m, but to build a battleship representing the same proportion of current GDP would mean spending £2.5bn.

I am a capitalist and I am a bit of a right winger, and I think in many ways the system we have got at the moment is really not a bad system. I think capitalism is a good thing. The only problem with capitalism is that it destroys the planet, and that it's based on growth. I mean apart from those two little details it's got a lot to be said in its favour.

The study of economic lift-off is well developed; touch-down has not been considered. There is an asymmetry here which would invite comment if applied to aviation.

There seems a general rule that, the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it.

Capitalism, he noted, is not something imposed on us by some outside force. It only exists because every day we wake up and continue to produce it. If we woke up one morning and all collectively decided to produce something else, then we wouldn't have capitalism anymore.

But if Smith was right, and gold and silver became money through the natural workings of the market completely independently of governments, then wouldn't the obvious thing be to just grab control of the gold and silver mines?

If 1 percent of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call "the free market" reflects what they think is useful or important.

What is a debt, anyway? A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a promise corrupted by both math and violence.

Banks are institutions to which the government has granted the power to create money—or

The source of status is no longer the ability to make things but simply the ability to purchase them.

Money is not created to earn money.

Economics [...] has the advantage of joining an extremely simple model of human nature with extremely complicated mathematical formulae that non-specialists can rarely understand, much less criticize.