Quotes about economy
page 4

“We can see good economic policies in the context of a consistent analysis of the economy.”

Peter Temin (1937) American economist

Why Keynes is Important Today (2014)

Henry George photo
Paul Krugman photo
Martha Plimpton photo
Jimmy Fallon photo

“The economy is so bad, Pat Sajak had to take out a home loan just to buy a vowel!”

Jimmy Fallon (1974) American TV Personality

Hosting The Tonight Show, October 31, 2016
Unsourced

Daniel J. Boorstin photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“I’m running for President to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. And based on what we know from the Trump campaign, he wants America to work for him and his friends, at the expense of everyone else.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)

Carl Sagan photo

“Diverting attention from the way in which certain beliefs, desires, attitudes, or values are the result of particular power relations, then, can be a sophisticated way of contributing to the maintenance of an ideology, and one that will be relatively immune to normal forms of empirical refutation. If I claim (falsely) that all human societies, or all human societies at a certain level of economic development, have a free market in health services, that is a claim that can be demonstrated to be false. On the other hand, if I focus your attention in a very intense way on the various different tariffs and pricing schema that doctors or hospitals or drug companies impose for their products and services, and if I become morally outraged by “excessive” costs some drug companies charge, discussing at great length the relative rates of profit in different sectors of the economy, and pressing the moral claims of patients, it is not at all obvious that anything I say may be straightforwardly “false”; after all, who knows what “excessive” means? However, by proceeding in this way I might well focus your attention on narrow issues of “just” pricing, turning it away from more pressing issues about the acceptance in some societies of the very existence of a free market for drugs and medical services. One can even argue that the more outraged I become about the excessive price, the more I obscure the underlying issue. One way, then, in which a political philosophy can be ideological is by presenting a relatively marginal issue as if it were central and essential.”

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 54.

William Luther Pierce photo

“The people are being kept in line at the moment, because there are still lots of shiny new things for them to buy. But more and more Americans are beginning to look beyond their immediate material comfort and to worry about the long-term moral slide of their country. If the economy slips badly, there will be hell to pay. More and more people will listen to the dissidents. A big problem for the Jews is how to silence the dissidents now, how to stifle the people who are asking inconvenient questions and thinking dangerous thoughts, before these thoughts spread to other people. They've tried to do it with legislation, but the country isn't yet in a mood to be told what it can think. What the Jews need is a nice, big war. Then they can crack down on the dissidents. Then they can call us "subversives." Then they can call us "unpatriotic," because we will be against their war… That's why I am convinced that there will be a strong effort to involve America in another major war during the next four years. This effort will be disguised, of course. It will be cloaked in deceit, as such efforts always are. While the warmongers are scheming for war, they will tell us how much they want peace. They're good at that sort of thing. They've had a lot of practice. But they will be scheming for war, believe me, no matter what they say. And when that war comes, remember what you have read today.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Get Set for War, 1997.
1990s, 1990

James Howard Kunstler photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“I believe in the American Constitution. I favor the American system of individual enterprise, and I am opposed to any general extension of government ownership, and control. I believe not only in advocating economy in public expenditure, but in its practical application and actual accomplishment. I believe in a reduction and reform of taxation, and shall continue my efforts in that direction.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

From his formal acceptance of the Republican party’s nomination for President (14 August 1924), as quoted in Coolidge: An American Enigma (1998), by Robert Sobel, Regnery Publishing, p. 292.
1920s

Marco Rubio photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“In Vermont, at a state beach, a mother is reprimanded by Authority for allowing her 6 month old daughter to go about without her diapers on. Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on peoples sexual frustrations.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

1969 essay in the Freeman — as quoted in "You Might Very Well Be the Cause of Cancer": Read Bernie Sanders' 1970s-Era Essays http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-freeman-sexual-freedom-fluoride, by Tim Murphy, Mother Jones (6 July 2015)
1970s

Benjamin Mkapa photo
Alex Steffen photo
Gary Hamel photo

“Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It's the only insurance against irrelevance. It's the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty. It's the only strategy for out-performing a dismal economy.”

Gary Hamel (1954) American management expert

Gary Hamel in: Gary Hamel On Innovating Innovation http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/12/04/gary-hamel-on-innovating-innovation/, Forbes, 4 December 2012.

Gary Johnson photo
Don Tapscott photo

“Collaboration is important not just because it's a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy.”

Don Tapscott (1947) Canadian businessman

Don Tapscott, in: The spirit of collaboration is touching all of our lives http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-spirit-of-collaboration-is-touching-all-of-our-lives/article12409331/, The Globe and Mail, 7 June 2013

Aliko Dangote photo

“Foreign investors did not build South Korea - South Koreans developed their country; the Germans built their economy, an economy that was once in ruins. The Germans suffered a lot but now they are the best.”

Aliko Dangote (1957) Nigerian billionaire entrepreneur

The Scoop NG http://www.thescoopng.com/we-have-scavengers-holding-licences-in-nigeria-10-quotes-by-aliko-dangote-during-birthday-event/

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Henry Adams photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Mahinda Rajapaksa photo
Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah photo
Pierre Trudeau photo

“The state has an active role to play in ensuring that there is equilibrium between the constituent parts of the economy, the consumers and the producers.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Part 3, 1974 - 1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 189
Memoirs (1993)

Mitt Romney photo

“America needs a president who can fix the economy because he understands the economy, and I do and I will.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

[2012-02-05, Nevada Caucus 2012 Full Victory Speech: Mitt Romney Targets President Obama's Economic Policies, ABC News, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lALG8hwQ_iw]
2012

Mitt Romney photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“In my message last year I emphasized the necessity for further legislation with a view to expediting the consolidation of our rail ways into larger systems. The principle of Government control of rates and profits, now thoroughly embedded in our governmental attitude toward natural monopolies such as the railways, at once eliminates the need of competition by small units as a method of rate adjustment. Competition must be preserved as a stimulus to service, but this will exist and can be increased tinder enlarged systems. Consequently the consolidation of the railways into larger units for the purpose of securing the substantial values to the public which will come from larger operation has been the logical conclusion of Congress in its previous enactments, and is also supported by the best opinion in the country. Such consolidation will assure not only a greater element of competition as to service, but it will afford economy in operation, greater stability in railway earnings, and more economical financing. It opens large possibilities of better equalization of rates between different classes of traffic so as to relieve undue burdens upon agricultural products and raw materials generally, which are now not possible without ruin to small units owing to the lack of diversity of traffic. It would also tend to equalize earnings in such fashion as to reduce the importance of section 15A, at which criticism, often misapplied, has been directed. A smaller number of units would offer less difficulties in labor adjustments and would contribute much to the, solution of terminal difficulties.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Roberto Saviano photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Arthur F. Burns photo
George W. Bush photo

“If the terriers and barriffs are torn down, this economy will grow.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Campaign speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfRoesb33ic (7 January 2000), Rochester, New York.
2000s, 2000

Ha-Joon Chang photo
Alex Salmond photo
Nicholas Wade photo

“With deregulation, one sector of the economy after another is "liberated" to capital's unmonitored authority. The very notion that there is a public interest is contested.”

Herbert Schiller (1919–2000) American media critic

Source: Living In The Number One Country (2000), Chapter Three, Communication Today: What's New?, p. 92

Mukesh Ambani photo

“I dream of India becoming one of four most powerful economies of the world. I believe this dream can be made a reality within our life times.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Quoted in page=30
Mukesh Dhirajlal Ambani, Anil Dhirajlal Ambani

Samuel Bowles photo

“Probably the greatest single weakness of the Sino-Soviet bloc is her shaky economy. Here is a soft spot where peaceful pressures could be devastating. No amount of Soviet propaganda can cover up the obvious collapse of the Chinese communes and the sluggish inefficiency of the Soviet collectivized farms. Every single Soviet satellite is languishing in a depression. Even Pravda has openly criticized the lack of bare essentials and the shoddy quality of Russian-made goods. These factors of austerity and deprivation add to the hatred and misery of the people which constantly feed the flames of potential revolt. Terrorist tactics have been used by the Red leaders to suppress uprisings. In spite of the virtual "state of siege" which exists throughout the Soviet empire, there are many outbreaks of violent protest. All of this explains why the Soviet leaders are constantly pleading for "free trade," "long-term loans," "increased availability of material goods from the West." Economically, Communism is collapsing but the West has not had the good sense to exploit it. Instead, the United States, Great Britain and 37 other Western powers are shipping vast quantities of goods to the Sino-Soviet bloc. Some business leaders have had the temerity to suggest that trade with the Reds helps the cause of peace. They suggest that "you never fight the people you trade with." Apparently they cannot even remember as far back as the late Thirties when this exact type of thinking resulted in the sale of scrap iron and oil to the Japanese just before World War II. After the attack on Pearl Harbor it became tragically clear that while trade with friends may promote peace, trade with a threatening enemy is an act of self-destruction. Have we forgotten that fatal lesson so soon?”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Thomas Eakins photo
John Howard Yoder photo
Edmund Burke photo
Gordon Brown photo

“What has become clear is that Britain cannot trust the Conservatives to run the economy. Everyone knows that I'm all in favour of apprenticeships, but let me tell you this is no time for a novice.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Speech at the Labour Party conference http://www.labour.org.uk/gordon_brown_conference, 23 September 2008.
Prime Minister

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
John McCain photo

“I think if you look at the overall record and millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that there's been great progress economically over that period of time. But that's no comfort. That's no comfort to families now that are facing these tremendous economic challenges. But let me just add, Peter, the fundamentals of America's economy are strong.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Interview with Peter Cook on Bloomberg TV http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/john_mccain_on_bloomberg_tv.html regarding economic progress during the Bush administration, 17 April 2008
2000s, 2008

Vladimir Lenin photo
V. P. Singh photo
W. Brian Arthur photo

“Increasing-returns economics has roots that go back 70 years or more, but its application to the economy as a whole is largely new.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy, (1994), p. 1: Chapter 1. Positive feedback in economics

Éric Pichet photo
Ernst Mach photo

“I see the expression of… economy clearly in the gradual reduction of the statical laws of machines to a single one, viz., the principle of virtual work: in the replacement of Kepler's laws by Newton's single law… and in the [subsequent] reduction, simplification and clarification of the laws of dynamics. I see clearly the biological-economical adaptation of ideas, which takes place by the principles of continuity (permanence) and of adequate definition and splits the concept 'heat' into the two concepts of 'temperature' and 'quantity of heat'; and I see how the concept 'quantity of heat' leads on to 'latent heat', and to the concepts of 'energy' and 'entropy.”

Ernst Mach (1838–1916) Austrian physicist and university educator

Mach (1910) "Die Leitgedanken meiner naturwissenschaftlichcn Erkennenislehre und ihr Aufnahme durch die Zeitgenossen", Physikalische Zeitschrift. 1, 1910, 599-606 Eng. trans. as "The Guiding Principles of my Scientific Theory of Knowledge and its Reception by my Contemporaries", in S. Toulmin ed., Physical Reality, New York : Harper, 1970. pp.28-43. Cited in: K. Mulligan & B. Smith (1988) " Mach and Ehrenfels: Foundations of Gestalt Theory http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/mach/mach.pdf"
20th century

Gottfried Feder photo
Rose Wilder Lane photo

“American clipper ships opened the British ports to free trade. Half a century of American smuggling and rebellion and costly ineffectual blockades; seven years of war in America, and the loss of the thirteen colonies; and all the sound and sensible arguments of English liberals and economists, could not break down the British planned economy. American clipper ships did it.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Source: Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority (1943), p. 239

https://mises.org/system/tdf/The%20Discovery%20of%20Freedom_2.pdf?file=1&type=document Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority

Michael Bloomberg photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Paul Hawken photo

“We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it GDP [gross domestic product].”

Paul Hawken (1946) American environmentalist

Paul Hawken Top 10 Myths About Sustainability http://www.mindfully.org/Sustainability/2009/Myths-About-Sustainability9mar09.htm at mindfully.org, 2009.

Roy Jenkins photo

“Undoubtedly, looking back, we nearly all allowed ourselves, for decades, to be frozen into rates of personal taxation which were ludicrously high… That frozen framework has been decisively cracked, not only by the prescripts of Chancellors but in the expectations of the people. It is one of the things for which the Government deserve credit… However, even beneficial revolutions have a strong tendency to breed their own excesses. There is now a real danger of the conventional wisdom about taxation, public expenditure and the duty of the state in relation to the distribution of rewards, swinging much too far in the opposite direction… I put in a strong reservation against the view, gaining ground a little dangerously I think, that the supreme duty of statesmanship is to reduce taxation. There is certainly no virtue in taxation for its own sake… We have been building up, not dissipating, overseas assets. The question is whether, while so doing, we have been neglecting our investment at home and particularly that in the public services. There is no doubt, in my mind at any rate, about the ability of a low taxation market-oriented economy to produce consumer goods, even if an awful lot of them are imported, far better than any planned economy that ever was or probably ever can be invented. However, I am not convinced that such a society and economy, particularly if it is not infused with the civic optimism which was in many ways the true epitome of Victorian values, is equally good at protecting the environment or safeguarding health, schools, universities or Britain's scientific future. And if we are asked which is under greater threat in Britain today—the supply of consumer goods or the nexus of civilised public services—it would be difficult not to answer that it was the latter.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1988/feb/24/opportunity-and-income-social-disparities in the House of Lords (24 February 1988).

Tjalling Koopmans photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
George Fitzhugh photo

“Does the functioning of the world economy tend to concentrate wealth and power, or does it tend to diffuse it?”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

Source: The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), Chapter One, Nature of Political Economy, p. 14

Rex Tillerson photo
James Anthony Froude photo
Lars Løkke Rasmussen photo
Hugo Diemer photo
Manuel Castells photo

“The e-economy cannot function without workers able to navigate, both technically and in terms of content, this deep sea of information, organizing it, focusing it, and transforming it into specific knowledge, appropriate for the task and purpose of the work process.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: The Internet Galaxy - Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (2001), Chapter 3, e-Business and the New Economy, p. 90

John McCain photo

“You know that there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street. And it is – it’s – people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still, the fundamentals are – of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult times. And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Speaking at Jacksonville, Florida the day after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the sell-off of Merrill Lynch, 15 September 2007 http://news.mywebpal.com/partners/680/public/news925950.html http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2008/09/economic-fundamentals-strong.html
2000s, 2008

Thomas Robert Malthus photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“We have to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. … How are we going to do it? We're going to do it by having the wealthy pay their fair share and close the corporate loopholes.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

W. Brian Arthur photo

“More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. (2009), p. 10

“My university education had been a shallow and superficial enterprise. The central driving forces of the economy I lived in were either ignored or left vague, to the point of meaningless.”

Herbert Schiller (1919–2000) American media critic

Introduction, One Life, One Century, p. 19
Living In The Number One Country (2000)

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“The size of General Motors is in the service not of monopoly or the economies of scale but of planning.”

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter VII, Section 2, p. 76

Neil Young photo

“The economy was getting so bad, I had to lay myself off.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Old Ways
Song lyrics, Old Ways (1985)

Chen Shui-bian photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
David Rockefeller photo
Immanuel Wallerstein photo
Yanis Varoufakis photo