Economics Quotes

Money, as a category, doesn't deserve love, respect nor hate. It's a category towards which you mustn't have emotions. Money is just an instrument.

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

Consequences matter more than intentions, and not just the immediate consequences, but also the longer run repercussions of decisions, policies, and institutions.

(the subprime fallout) ``will not affect the economy overall.''

(the subprime fallout) ``will not affect the economy overall.''

I don't see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem. I think it's going to be largely contained." , "All the signs I look at" show "the housing market is at or near the bottom

the fallout in subprime mortgages is going to be painful to some lenders, but it is largely contained

the fallout in subprime mortgages is going to be painful to some lenders, but it is largely contained

I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

Pride and poverty walk together.

The problem with economists is that they have the reasoning skills of pop-psychologists and the charisma of mathematicians.

It's time for policy makers to start paying attention, and listen to psychologists a little bit instead of economists.

The traditional law and economics response is that rationality is simply an abstraction developed as a useful model of predicting the behavior of large numbers of people and, as such, does not purport to describe real people embedded in a real social order.

You compare the nation, perhaps, to a parched tract of land, and the tax to a fertilizing rain. Be it so. But you ought also to ask yourself where are the sources of this rain and whether it is not the tax itself which draws away the moisture from the ground and dries it up?

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."

The Dismal Science.

In epochs when cash payment has become the sole nexus of man to man.

Taxation and representation are inseparable…whatever is a man's own, is absolutely his own; no man hath a right to take it from him without his consent either expressed by himself or representative.

You cannot now, if you ever could, spend your way out of a recession.