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Economics Quotes

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Economics Quotes

“The first rule of economics is that there is an infinite number of desires chasing a finite number of goods, services and resources. The first rule of politics is to ignore the first rule of economics.”

Firsts Desire Numbers Resources Economics Infinite Goods Chasing Finite Finite Number

Author:Thomas Sowell

“All of the progress that the US has made over the last couple of centuries has come from unemployment. It has come from figuring out how to produce more goods with fewer workers, thereby releasing labor to be more productive in other areas. It has never come about through permanent unemployment, but temporary unemployment, in the process of shifting people from one area to another.”

People Made Lasts Process Progress Century Produce Couple Areas Economics Labor Workers Permanent Productive Goods Temporary Fewer Unemployment Shifting

Author:Milton Friedman

“Innovating economies expand and develop. Economies that do not add new kinds of goods and services, but continue only to repeat old work, do not expand much nor do they, by definition, develop.”

Kind Economy Economics Add Definitions Repeats Goods Goods And Services

Book:The Economy of Cities

Source: The Economy of Cities

“the principal sources of human misery may fairly be said to lie in the over-possession, under-possession, and the unwise use of economic goods.”

Humans May Said Use Lying Economic Source Economics Misery Possession Goods Principal Unwise

Author:Georgia Harkness

“[A] private property regime makes people responsible for their own actions in the realm of material goods. Such a system therefore ensures that people experience the consequences of their own acts. Property sets up fences, but it also surrounds us with mirrors, reflecting back upon us the consequences of our own behavior.”

People Action Materials Behavior Consequence Economics Responsible Mirrors Property Realms Goods Surround Regimes Fence Reflecting Private Property Reflecting Back

Author:Tom Bethell

“[F]or women, like tradesmen, draw in the injudicious to buy their goods by the high value they themselves set upon them.... They endeavor strongly to fix in the minds of their enamoratos their own high value, and then contrive as much as possible to make them believe that they have so many purchasers at hand that the goods--if they do not make haste--will all be gone.”

Ifs Men Mind Believe Hands Values Marriage Gone Draws Men And Women Economics Goods Endeavor Haste Purchasers

Author:Sarah Fielding

“Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.”

Purpose Economics Goods Purchasing

Book:An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations With a Life of the Author: Also a View of the Doctrine of Smith, Compared with that of the French Economists, with a Method of Facilitating the Study of His Works, from the French of M. Jariner

Source: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations With a Life of the Author: Also a View of the Doctrine of Smith, Compared with that of the French Economists, with a Method of Facilitating the Study of His Works, from the French of M. Jariner

“I think that a true economics thinker or a Marxist thinker would make nonsense of my argument, although I have given massive seminars and no one has demolished it so far. I did think that this idea from an artisanal and trading perception of the auratic quality of goods when they are given character and inscription, made the stories of phantasmic wealth read more powerfully in the 18th and 19th centuries than the stories of Cinderella's wealth, because they are conjured out of nothing by these magic means.”

Thinking Mean Made Ideas Character Stories Given Wealth Quality Magic Century Perception Economics Argument Nonsense Massive Goods Thinker Trading 19th Century Marxist Inscriptions Seminars

Author:Marina Warner

“Globalization and free trade do spur economic growth, and they lead to lower prices on many goods.”

Philosophy Political Growth Economic Economics Trade Goods Globalization Economic Growth Spurs Free Trade

Author:Robert Reich

“America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.”

“In raising the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates in the same manner as simple interest does in the accumulation of debt. Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods, both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits; they are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

People Doe Philosophy Political Interest Simple Effects Masters Gains Economics Regard Silent Profit Complaining Goods Commodity Wages Compounds Merchants Pernicious Compound Interest

Author:Adam Smith

“How you make it in this world, for the most part, depends more on what you do as opposed to whether people like or dislike you. In order to produce a successful life, one must find ways to please his fellow man. That is, find out what goods and services his fellow man values, and is willing to pay for, and then acquire the necessary skills and education to provide it.”

“I expect to see the State, which is in a position to calculate the marginal efficiency of capital-goods on long views and on the basis of the general social advantage, taking an ever greater responsibility for directly organizing investments.”

Long States Philosophy Political Social Views Responsibility Greater Position Advantage Economics Bases Investment Goods Efficiency

Book:Keynes and Public Policy After Fifty Years: Theories and method

Source: Keynes and Public Policy After Fifty Years: Theories and method

“Goods move in response to price differences from points of low to points of higher price, the movement tending to obliterate the price difference and come to rest.”

Philosophy Moving Political Differences Movement Higher Lows Economics Response Goods Genocide

Book:The Ethics of Competition

Source: The Ethics of Competition

“The party that called itself liberal aimed at respecting the liberty to dispose of one's own goods”

Philosophy Political Party Liberty Economics Goods

Author:Vilfredo Pareto

“Greediness consists in ravishing the goods of another through violence or cunning, as in the two noble professions of the conqueror and courtier. But the merchant, like all other industrious men, seeks his benefit only in his talent, in virtue of freely arrived at agreements, and appealing to faith and the laws.”

Men Two Philosophy Law Political Virtue Violence Talent Benefits Economics Noble Profession Agreement Goods Cunning Merchants Conqueror Industrious Greediness Courtiers Noble Profession

Author:Augustin Thierry

“Movements have narratives. They tell stories, because they are not just about rearranging economics and politics. They also rearrange meaning. And they're not just about redistributing the goods. They're about figuring out what is good.”

Stories Political Change Society Movement Goodness Economics Determine Meaningful Narrative Goods Distribution Wordplay Rearranging

Author:Marshall Ganz