Economist Quotes - Page 15

• Economists got away from really questioning how the world works, how decisions actually got made. If something doesn't conform to neoclassical models ... people are not somehow behaving themselves properly.

  W. Brian Arthur

  People, Decision, World

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• Unsustainable situations usually go on longer than most economists think possible. But they always end, and when they do, it's often painful.

  Paul Krugman

  Thinking, Goes On, Painful

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• Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. If all economists were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Mistake, Wonderful, Ends

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• Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Husband, Humility, Pride

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.61, Harvard University Press

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• I'm a better economist than I was a sax player.

  Alan Greenspan

  Player

  Source: www.today.com

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• There is a myth that the New Deal programs on their own pulled the US out of the Great Depression and created the conditions for the economic boom after World War II. As an economist, I can tell you, that is not true. In reality, it was mainly World War II that launched the boom - the massive war mobilization, the horrifying destruction and death caused by it, and then the reconstruction in its aftermath. he US was the only advanced capitalist country that was not bombed during the war.

  Kshama Sawant

  Country, War, Reality

  Source: www.socialistalternative.org

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• In order to be an economist these days, you have to participate in this fairytale that somehow we can recover and still make the banks rich. And it is a fairytale.

  Michael Hudson

  Order, Fairytale, Rich

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• You'll have to have the governments sell off all of their public domains; sell off their railroads, sell off their public land. You'll essentially have to introduce neo-feudalism. You'll have to roll the clock of history back a thousand years, and reduce the European population to debt slavery. It's as simple a solution as the Eurozone has imposed on Greece. And it's a solution that the leaders and the banks are urging for responsible economists to promote for the population at large.

  Michael Hudson

  Simple, Government, Years

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• 'Tis a good rule in every journey to provide some piece of liberal study to rescue the hours which bad weather, bad company, and taverns steal from the best economist.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Journey, Weather, Taverns

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “English traits”, p.37

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• I'm an economist by training. I don't really work as an economist. I only worked briefly as an economist.

  Ben Stein

  Training

  The Onion interview, www.avclub.com. January 27, 1999.

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• I understand very well that politicians always have to bridge the gap until the next election, even if long-term dangers increase as a result. But as an economist, my time horizon is longer.

  Hans-Werner Sinn

  Bridges, Long, Gaps

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• I take my profession as an economist seriously and feel a commitment to the truth. This is incompatible with having to toe the political party line.

  Hans-Werner Sinn

  Party, Commitment, Political

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25 and 40 percent of the gross national product.

  Naomi Wolf

  Country, West, Economics

  Naomi Wolf (2009). “The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women”, p.23, Harper Collins

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• The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of little use to investors.

  Barry Ritholtz

  Intelligent, News, Use

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• Every company that has an economist working for him has one employee too many.

  Warren Buffett

  Employee, Company

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• The seminar in economic theory conducted by Hayek at the L.S.E. in the 1930s was attended, it came to seem, by all of the economists of my generation - Nicky Kaldor , Thomas Balogh, L. K. Jah, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, the list could be indefinitely extended. The urge to participate (and correct Hayek) was ruthlessly competitive.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Generations, Lists, Hayek

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• Moyo, a Zambia-born economist, asserts that aid is not only ineffective-it's harmful. Her argument packs a strong punch because she was born and raised in Africa. Moyo believes aid money promotes the corruption of governments and the dependence of citizens, and advocates that an investment approach will do more to help reduce poverty than aid ever could.

  Amy Lockwood

  Strong, Believe, Government

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• Our belief in salvation through the market is very much in the Utopian tradition. The economists and managers are the servants of God. Like the medieval scholastics, their only job is to uncover the divine plan. They could never create or stop it. At most they might aspire to small alterations.

  John Ralston Saul

  Jobs, Servant Of God, Might

  John Ralston Saul (1999). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

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• Progess, do not regress.

  Edward C. Prescott

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• The absurdity of public-choice theory is captured by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in the following little scenario: "Can you direct me to the railway station?" asks the stranger. "Certainly," says the local, pointing in the opposite direction, towards the post office, "and would you post this letter for me on your way?" "Certainly," says the stranger, resolving to open it to see if it contains anything worth stealing.

  Linda McQuaig

  Winning, Opposites, Office

  Linda McQuaig (2001). “All you can eat: greed, lust, and the new capitalism”, Viking

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• Economists think the poor need them to tell them that they are poor.

  Peter Drucker

  Thinking, Political, Needs

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• I know economists will say well, we could run a small deficit but the problem is that once you cross that line as we see in the United States, nothing stops deficits from getting larger and larger and spiralling out of control.

  Stephen Harper

  Running, United States, Lines

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• An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.

  Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.

  Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Men

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• As an economist, whenever I hear the word shortage I wait for the other shoe to drop. That other shoe is usually price control.

  Thomas Sowell

  Shoes, Waiting, Shortage

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• Thanks to the central bank, most "monetary experts" and "leading macro-economists" can, by putting them on the payroll, be turned into government propagandists "explaining," like alchemists, how stones (paper) can be turned into bread (wealth).

  Hans-Hermann Hoppe

  Government, Alchemist, Experts

  "Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the Impracticality of One-World Government and the Failure of Western-style Democracy". Interview with Anthony Wile, www.thedailybell.com. March 27, 2011.

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