Quotes About Economics

Economically, Reagan's followers—and Reagan himself—had been converted to the theory of "supply-side economics," which held that tax cuts would stimulate so much economic activity that tax revenues would actually rise if rates were lower.

This—Bob was saying—was the straightforward solution to the greatest mystery of all: Why is the world so unfair? Why all that savage economic injustice, those brutal wars, the everyday corporate cruelty? The answer: psychopaths.

Why is the world so unfair? Why all that savage economic injustice, those brutal wars, the everyday corporate cruelty? The answer: psychopaths. That part of the brain that doesn't function right.

religion, too, which is another big drug for people who don't have economic opportunity

The country as a whole had become so hostile to the have-nots that large numbers of the have-nots themselves now voted against their own economic interests.

Nine out of ten significant people have to do with money or war!

La biodiversità era stata rimpiazziata dall'uniformità genetica, nelle università i dipartimenti di scienze animali erano diventati dipartimenti di scienze zootecniche, un'attività economica un tempo dominata dalle donne era ormai passata in mano ai maschi, e pollicoltori esperti erano stati rimpiazzati da dipendenti stipendiati. Non ci fu un colpo di pistola a segnare l'inizio della corsa verso il basso. Il terreno si inclinò e tutti scivolarono giù.

who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it. Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he has at least some glimpse of hope that there will be ever some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.

Money is abstract, I said over and over, money is future time.

As a matter of practical necessity, socialist democracy may eventually turn out to be more of a sham than capitalist democracy ever was. In any case, that democracy will not mean increased personal freedom.

Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can. But this opinion of mine, like that of every other economist who has pronounced upon the subject, is in itself completely uninteresting. What counts in any attempt at social prognosis is not the Yes or No that sums up the facts and arguments which lead up to it but those facts and arguments themselves.

the most evident distinguishing sign is man's organization of his life according primarily to mythic, and only secondarily economic, aims and laws. Food and drink, reproduction and nest-building, it is true, play formidable roles in the lives no less of men than of chimpanzees. But what of the economics of the Pyramids, the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, Hindus starving to death with edible cattle strolling all around them, or the history of Israel, from the time of Saul to right now?

All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.

Crack cocaine is the contemporary beaver, an international fad that has radically altered the economics of the poorest, marginal people, indigenous America. The gangs are the tribes of the New World.

Increasing prosperity for the capitalists has everywhere brought with it increasing prosperity for the proletariat, instead of the increasing misery which Marx foretold. The most advanced capitalist countries are also those where the working class has the highest standard of life.

Soup kitchens were the prelude to revolution. The revolutionaries might talk about socialism, those who actually revolted wanted 'the right to work'- more capitalism, not its abolition.

The trading characteristics of a security become more important than its underlying economics. The virtual economics began to drive the physical economy rather than the other way around.

The greater fool is actually an economic term. It's a patsy. For the rest of us to profit, we need a greater fool— someone who will buy long and sell short. Most people spend their life trying not to be the greater fool; we toss him the hot potato, we dive for his seat when the music stops. The greater fool is someone with the perfect blend of self-delusion and ego to think that he can succeed where others have failed. This whole country was made by greater fools.

Maybe slavery has been with us for centuries because of the inclination to maintain economic systems geared more toward commodifying human existence than developing its spiritual, creative, or scientific potentials. Such commodification instantly erases any recognition of humanity as a priceless value unto itself and reduces individuals as well as entire races, or a specific gender, to a bargain-priced 'other.

Leadership has never been an exact science. But it has always found itself particularly challenged when tasked with elevating one segment of a society onto a level more politically, socially, and economically equitable with another.

Whether the owners of this species of property [slavery] do really see it as it is, it is not for me to say, but if they do, they see it as it is through 2,000,000,000 of dollars, and that is a pretty thick coating.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

In the late 1850s, one Florida senator reported that US ships sailing to Angola could buy Africans for about $70 and then sell them in Cuba for almost $1,200.

In hyperinflation, a kilo of potatoes was worth, to some, more than the family silver; a side of pork more than the grand piano. A prostitute in the family was better than an infant corpse; theft was preferable to starvation; warmth was finer than honour, clothing more essential than democracy, food more needed than freedom.