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Recessions Quotes

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Recessions Quotes

“Whenever a state or an individual cited 'insufficient funds' as an excuse for neglecting this important thing or that, it was indicative of the extent to which reality had been distorted by the abstract lens of wealth. During periods of so-called economic depression, for example, societies suffered for want of all manner of essential goods, yet investigation almost invariably disclosed that there were plenty of goods available. Plenty of coal in the ground, corn in the fields, wool on the sheep. What was missing was not materials but an abstract unit of measurement called 'money.' It was akin to a starving woman with a sweet tooth lamenting that she couldn't bake a cake because she didn't have any ounces. She had butter, flour, eggs, milk, and sugar, she just didn't have any ounces, any pinches, any pints. The loony legacy of money was that the arithmetic by which things were measured had become more valuable than the things themselves.”

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Book:Skinny Legs and All
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“Most economists would concede that, in theory, government has the tools to smooth the business cycle. The problem is that fiscal policy is not made in theory; it’s made in Congress. For fiscal policy to be a successful antidote to recession, three things must happen: (1) Congress and the president must agree to a plan that contains an appropriate remedy; (2) they must pass their plan in a timely manner; and (3) the prescribed remedy must kick in fast. The likelihood of nailing all three of these requirements is slim. Remarkably, in most postwar recessions, Congress did not pass legislation in response to the downturn until after it had ended. In one particularly egregious example, Congress was still passing legislation in May 1977 to deal with the recession that ended in March 1975.17 At the end of the relatively mild 2001–2002 recession, the New York Times ran the following headline: “Fed Chief Sees Decline Over; House Passes Recovery Bill.” I’m not making this stuff up. Wheelan, Charles J.. Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (p. 214). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.”

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Author:Wheelan, Charles J.
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“Cold-turkey deficit reduction would cause a significant recession. A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that going headlong over the cliff would cause our gross domestic product, which has been growing at an annual rate of around 2 percent, to fall at a rate of 2.9 percent in the first half of 2013.”

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Author:Christina Romer
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“Before Barack Obama took office, it looked like that pride could have vanished forever, but today, from the staggering depths of the Great Recession, the nation has had 29 straight months of job growth. Workers across my state and across the country are getting back the dignity of a good job and a good salary.”

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Author:Ted Strickland
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“Too-easy credit and millions of bad loans made during the U.S. housing bubble paved the way for the financial calamity and Great Recession that followed. Today, by contrast, credit is too tight. Mortgage loans are particularly hard to get, creating a problem for the housing market and the broader economy.”

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Author:Mark Zandi
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“In the large sense the primary cause of the Great Depression was the war of 1914-1918. Without the war there would have been no depression of such dimensions. There might have been a normal cyclical recession; but, with the usual timing, even that readjustment probably would not have taken place at that particular period, nor would it have been a "Great Depression.”

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Book:The great depression, 1929-1941
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“In the wake of the Cultural Revolution and now of the recession I observe a mounting pressure to co-operate and to promote "teamwork." For its anti-individualistic streak, such a drive is of course highly suspect; some people may not be so sensitive to it, but having seen the Hitlerjugend in action suffices for the rest of your life to be very wary of "team spirit." Very.”

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Author:Edsger Dijkstra
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“As the United States continues its slow but steady recovery from the depths of the financial crisis, nobody actually wants a massive austerity package to shock the economy back into recession, and so the odds have always been high that the game of budgetary chicken will stop short of disaster. Looming past the cliff, however, is a deep chasm that poses a much greater challenge -- the retooling of the country's economy, society, and government necessary for the United States to perform effectively in the twenty-first century.”

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Author:Fareed Zakaria
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“A standard of living is of the nature of habit. ...it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale of conspicuous expenditure that has once become habitual.”

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Book:THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS: An Economic Study of American Institutions and a Social Critique of Conspicuous Consumption: Development of Institutions That Shape Society and Influence the Livelihood of Citizens: Based on Sociological & Economical Theories of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Adam Smith and Herbert Spencer
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“The fears of recession in the aftermath of Black Monday have turned to fears of the economy racing ahead too fast, with inflation edging up and a substantial current account deficit... People understandably feel more confident about their future than they've done for decades, but as a result they have been borrowing more and saving less... Coming on top of a massive income investment boom, it's all been just a bit too much of a good thing.”

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Author:Nigel Lawson
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“Broadly speaking, Keynesianism means that the government has a specific responsibility for the behavior of the economy, that it doesn't work on its own autonomous course, but the government, when there's a recession, compensates by employment, by expansion of purchasing power, and in boom times corrects by being a restraining force. But it controls the great flow of demand into the economy, what since Keynesian times has been the flow of aggregate demand. That was the basic idea of Keynes so far as one can put it in a couple of sentences.”

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Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
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