Browsing Topic Best Economist Quotes

One gets the impression that our Western colleagues, politicians, and economists have simply forgotten the foundations of the elementary laws of economics, or, to their detriment, prefer to deliberately ignore them

The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist

Anyone who thinks consumption can expand forever on a finite planet is either insane or an economist.

The evolution of government from its medieval, Mafia-like character to that embodying modern legal institutions and instruments is a major part of the history of freedom. It is a part that tends to be obscured or ignored because of the myopic vision of many economists, who persist in modeling government as nothing more than a gigantic form of theft and income redistribution.

The Communists were interested in getting into key positions as union officers, statisticians, economists, etc., in order to utilize the apparatus of the unions to promote the cause of revolution.

I’m not an economist and we all know economists were created to make weather forecasters look good.

Lunches don’t get free just because you don’t see the prices on the menu. And economists don’t get popular by reminding people of that.

There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?

The track record of economists in predicting events is monstrously bad. It is beyond simplification; it is like medieval medicine.

Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises with debt spending

I’ve debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability, they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man.

The economists will have to revise their theories of value.

Economists and workplace consultants regard it as almost unquestioned dogma that people are motivated by rewards, so they don’t feel the need to test this. It has the status more of religious truth than scientific hypothesis. The facts are absolutely clear. There is no question that in virtually all circumstances in which people are doing things in order to get rewards, extrinsic tangible rewards undermine intrinsic motivation.The bonus myth: How paying for results can backfire The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

For those of you who may be unaware, [Michael] Boskin is the economist/weasel/fraud who helped to officially distort the CPI, making it more or less worthless as a measure of inflation. The Boskin Commission… was an act of cowardice. Rather than man up and say fix this, its broken, we can’t afford it.

THERE is widespread agreement among economists that abuse of credit constitutes one of the chief unwholesome elements in business booms and is mainly responsible for the ensuing crash and depression.

I think that having good data, good statistics-and the United States generally has better macroeconomic statistics than most countries-and having good economists to interpret those data and present the policy alternatives, has a substantially beneficial effect on policymaking in the United States.

I’m a better economist than I was a sax player.

I don’t think that any economist disputes that we’re in the worst economic crisis since the great depression. The good news is that we’re getting a consensus around what needs to be done.

Colleges don’t teach economics properly. Unfortunately we learn little from the experience of the past. An economist must know, besides his subject, ethics, logic, philosophy, the humanities and sociology, in fact everything that is part of how we live and react to one another.

Economists say the inability to delay gratification is a primary predictor of economic failure in life.

The economists who have put the spotlight on teacher quality are the ones who most misunderstand it.

Economists who speak the English tongue are strangely intimidated by mathematical symbols.

Economists report that a college education adds many thousands of dollars to a man’s lifetime income – which he then spends sending his son to college.

All economists should be locked up until they admit that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

‘Murphys law of economic policy’: Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least and disagree most vehemently.

The fear among economists across the political spectrum that was – was that we were rapidly plummeting towards a second Great Depression. So, in the weeks and months that followed, we undertook a series of difficult steps to prevent that outcome. And we were forced to take those steps largely without the help of an opposition party, which, unfortunately, after having presided over the decision-making that had led to the crisis, decided to hand it over to others to solve.

Even if the constants which economists wish to determine were less numerous, and the method of experiment more accessible, we should still be faced with the fact that the constants themselves are different at different times. The gravitation constant is the same always. But the economic constants-these elasticities of demand and supply-depending, as they do, upon human consciousness, are liable to vary. The constitution of the atom, as it were, and not merely its position, changes under the influence of environment.

You still don’t like the idea of gay marriage? Then, as my friend, the economist Julianne Malveaux, says: Don’t marry a gay person. Case closed, problem solved.

Independent economists say immigration reform will grow our economy and shrink our deficits by almost $1 trillion in the next two decades. And for good reason: when people come here to fulfill their dreams – to study, invent, and contribute to our culture – they make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate and create jobs for everyone. So let’s get immigration reform done this year.

most economists, like doctors, are reluctant to make predictions, and those who make them are seldom accurate. The economy, like the human body, is a highly complex system whose workings are not thoroughly understood.

But if, if you take a look at what would have happened, I mean, do we need to see soup lines down the street to figure out what would have happened? We avoided – and all economists will tell you that millions of jobs were saved because of the Recovery Act, and we avoided a second Great Depression. That, that is a reality.

Ever since the Great Depression, economists have known that demand shortages tend to persist in the wake of severe financial crises like the ones that happened in 1929 and 2008.

It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

Only economists mistake physical opulence for riches.

[Economists’ advice] is something like patent medicine – people know it is largely manufactured by quacks and that a good percentage of the time it won’t work, but they continue to buy the brand whose flavor they like.