Economics Quotes - Page 3

• When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union - like public housing in the United States - look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.

  Milton Friedman

  Years, Two, Political

  Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.42, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There are two problems in my life. The political ones are insoluble and the economic ones are incomprehensible.

  Alec Douglas-Home

  Life, Two, Political

  1964 Speech, Jan.

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• Over the years, the U.S. economy has shown a remarkable ability to absorb shocks of all kinds, to recover, and to continue to grow. Flexible and efficient markets for labor and capital, an entrepreneurial tradition, and a general willingness to tolerate and even embrace technological and economic change all contribute to this resiliency.

  Ben Bernanke

  Change, Technology, Years

  "Letting the air out". www.economist.com. November 19, 2008.

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• Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Change, Strong, Power

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.199, Beacon Press

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• The first law of economics is that when the price goes up, consumption comes down. This is a divine law.

  Ahmed Zaki Yamani

  Business, Law, Firsts

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• In the 19th century China dominated the manufacture of porcelain. Then European factories discovered a cheaper method of making pottery of equal quality, demolishing the Chinese industry the exact reverse of what is happening now. World economics have turned full circle.

  Martin Sorrell

  Business, Circles, Chinese

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• The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds - where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough - a modest living- and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.

  Walt Whitman

  Beautiful, Country, Men

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• What's happening is there's transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy. This comes about because of the monetary system that we have. When you inflate a currency or destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out, so the people who get to use the money first, which is created by the Federal Reserve System, benefit, so the money gravitates to the banks and to Wall Street. That's why you have more billionaires than ever before.

  Ron Paul

  Money, Wall, Class

  Republican Presidential debate in Dearborn, Mich., www.nytimes.com. October 9, 2007.

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• For it is an essential difference between capitalist and socialist production that under capitalism men provide for themselves, while under Socialism they are provided for.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Differences, Liberty

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist”, p.409, VM eBooks

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• The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Important, Liberty, Libertarian

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• This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it: (1) The few plunder the many. (2) Everybody plunders everybody. (3) Nobody plunders anybody.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Three, Way

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.18, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I've always been a big believer in the power of place. I believe that where we are affects who we are when it comes to happiness, spirituality, economics and creative genius.

  Eric Weiner

  Believe, Creative, Who We Are

  "How your neighborhood coffee shop is brewing geniuses". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. January 21, 2016.

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• Economics spreads happiness.

  Tim Harford

  Spread

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources.

  Greg Mankiw

  Study, Resources, Scarce

  "Principles of Economics". Book by N. Gregory Mankiw, 2015.

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• Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man

  Henry Hazlitt

  Men, Study, Fallacy

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.11, Crown Business

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• The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.

  Milton Friedman

  Hate, Color, People

  "Why Government Is the Problem". Book by Milton Friedman, February 1, 1993.

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• One of the soundest rules to remember when making forecasts in the field of economics is that whatever is to happen is happening already.

  Sylvia Porter

  Fields, Remember, Finance

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• Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Friends, Men

  Address to the Canadian Parliament, May 17, 1961.

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• Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Wise, Successful, Investing

  "Isms" by Gregory Bergman, (p. 105), 2006.

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• We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

  Winston Churchill

  Freedom, Humor, Men

  Winston S. Churchill “Young Statesman”

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• From the equilibrium and spontaneous order of Adam Smith and his heirs, from invisible-handed markets and perfect competition, supply and demand, and rewards and punishments, I was pushed to theories of disequilibrium and disorder, and information and noise, as the keys to understanding economic progress.

  George Gilder

  Order, Punishment, Keys

  George Gilder (2013). “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World”, p.20, Regnery Publishing

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• There's no such thing as a free lunch.

  Milton Friedman

  Lunch Break, Ecological Crisis, Ecology

  1973 Lecture. The phrase is thought to have been coined anonymously, perhaps referring to the 19c US tradition of supplying food in bars to patrons buying drinks.

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• Supply creates its own demand.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Demand, Supply And Demand

  Jean-Baptiste Say (2016). “Jean-Baptiste Say and Political Economy”, p.42, Routledge

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• When the government makes loans or subsidies to business, what it does is to tax successful private business in order to support unsuccessful private business.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Philosophy, Successful, Government

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.45, Crown Business

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• The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Money, Simple, Mind

  "Money: Whence it came, where it went". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, pp. 15, 29, 1975.

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