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Economics Quotes

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Economics Quotes

“Economists are like computers. They need to have facts punched into them.”

Needs Facts Computer Economics Economist

Author:Kenneth E. Boulding

“For far too long economists have sought to define themselves in terms of their supposedly scientific methods. In fact, those methods rely on an immoderate use of mathematical models, which are frequently no more than an excuse for occupying the terrain and masking the vacuity of the content.”

Long Facts Use Term Models Economics Method Excuse Mathematical Rely Economist Scientific Method Terrain Vacuity Mathematical Models

Author:Thomas Piketty

“[The taxing power of the state] divides the community into two great classes: one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes and, of course, bear exclusively the burden of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements,and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers. But the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations in reference to the fiscal action of the government and the entire course of policy therewith connected.”

Two States Philosophy Facts Reality Government Action Political Courses Community Pay Class Effects Policy Bears Taxes Economics Relation Burden Connected Consumers Divides Fewer

Author:John C. Calhoun

“Socialist thought owes its appeal to the young largely to its visionary character; the very courage to indulge in Utopian thought is in this respect a source of strength for socialism which traditional liberalism sadly lacks. Speculation about general principles provides an opportunity for the play of the imagination of those who are unencumbered by much knowledge of the facts of present-day life. Their ideas suffer from inherent contradictions, and any attempt to put them into practice must produce something utterly different from what they expect.”

“I've always believed that a speculative bubble need not lead to a recession, as long as interest rates are cut quickly enough to stimulate alternative investments. But I had to face the fact that speculative bubbles usually are followed by recessions. My excuse has been that this was because the policy makers moved too slowly - that central banks were typically too slow to cut interest rates in the face of a burst bubble, giving the downturn time to build up a lot of momentum.”

“In fact, I'd say that the sources of the economy's expansion from 2003 to 2007 were, in order, the housing bubble, the war, and - very much in third place - tax cuts.”

War Philosophy Facts Political Order Economy Cutting Source Taxes Economics Thirds Bubbles Expansion Housing Tax Cuts Third Place Housing Bubble

Author:Paul Krugman

“Liberalism is, in fact, the ideology of the capitalist revolution that prodigiously raised the living standards of the mass of people; a doctrine gradually elaborated over several centuries, which offered a new concept of social order, encompassing freedom in the only form suited to the modern world. Step by step, in practice and theory, the various sectors of human activity were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of coercive authority and given over to the voluntary action of self-regulating society.”

“Tax increases appear to have a very large sustained and highly significant negative impact on output. Since most of our exogenous tax changes are in fact reductions, the more intuitive way to express this result is that tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects”

Way Philosophy Facts Political Results Cutting Effects Taxes Negative Economics Increase Impact Significant Intuitive Persistent Reduction Tax Cuts Output Tax Increases

Author:Christina Romer

“It is particularly odd that economists who profess to be champions of a free-market economy, should go to such twists and turns to avoid facing the plain fact: that gold, that scarce and valuable market-produced metal, has always been, and will continue to be, by far the best money for human society.”

Should Humans Facts Turns Economy Economics Gold Valuable Odd Champion Metals Economist Twists Free Market Scarce Human Society Market Economy Best Money Twists And Turns

Author:Murray Rothbard

“Almost all systems of economic thought are premised on the idea of continued economic growth, which would be fine and dandy if we lived on an infinite planet, but there's this small, niggling, inconvenient fact that the planet is, in fact, finite, and that, unlike economic theory, it is governed by physical and biological reality”

Ifs Ideas Facts Reality Would Be Growth Business Economic Planets Theory Fine Economics Infinite Management Finite Economic Growth Inconvenient Economic Theory Dandy

Author:George Monbiot

“We all need a story. It just turns out that the story we have been told for years - that people are naturally and primarily competitive and self-interested and that life is best shaped around that bleak fact - is bunkum”

People Needs Years Has Beens Self Facts Stories Life Is Turns Business Economics Management Bleak

Author:Ed Mayo

“Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.”

Two War Facts Wealth Poor Cities Poverty Rich Economics Inequality Divided Plato City Life Urban Life War On Poverty

Book:The Portable Plato

Source: The Portable Plato

“Yet the basic fact remains: every regulation represents a restriction of liberty, every regulation has a cost. That is why, like marriage (in the Prayer Book's words), regulation should not "be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly"”

Should Book Facts Hands Political Politics Prayer Liberty Taken Cost Economics Remains Conservative Regulation Restriction

Author:Margaret Thatcher

“Mainstream economics scholarship produces theory without facts ("pure theory") and facts without theory ("applied economics").”

Facts Produce Theory Pure Economics Mainstream Scholarship

Author:Michel Chossudovsky

“But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics.”

“As I talk about strengths and weaknesses in academic economics, one interesting fact you are entitled to know is that I never took a course in economics. And with this striking lack of credentials, you may wonder why I have the chutzpah to be up here giving this talk. The answer is I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it.”

Knows Giving May Facts Courses Black Born Answers Interesting Wonder Weakness Economics Academic Entitled Belts Strength And Weakness Credentials Black Belt Interesting Fact

Author:Charlie Munger