Quotes about economy
page 5

Mitt Romney photo
Alfred P. Sloan photo

“Only in more production and in new production can the American standard of living be increased and the economy be sound.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Alfred P. Sloan, quoted in: Forbes, Forbes Incorporated, (1959), p. 54

Paul A. Samuelson photo

“In the preface to the reissue of Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Frank Knight makes the penetrating observation that under the conditions envisaged above the velocity of circulation would become infinite and so would the price level. This is perhaps an over-dramatic way of saying that nobody would hold money, and it would become a free good to go into the category of shell and other things which once served as money. We should expect too that it would not only pass out of circulation, but it would cease to be used as a conventional numeraire in terms of which prices are expressed. Interest bearing money would emerge. Of course, the above does not happen in real life, precisely because uncertainty, contingency needs, non-synchronization of revenues and outlay, transaction frictions, etc., etc., all are with us. But the abstract special case analyzed above should warn us against the facile assumption that the average levels of the structure of interest rates are determined solely or primarily by these differential factors. At times they are primary, and at other times, such as the twenties in this country, they may not be. As a generalization I should hazard the hypothesis that they are likely to be of great importance in an economy in which there is a “quasi-zero" rate of interest. I think by this hypothesis one can explain many of the anomalies of the United States money market in the thirties.”

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 5 : Theory of Consumer’s Behavior

David Orrell photo
George W. Bush photo

“Companies are in the midst of a revolutionary transformation. Industrial age competition is shifting to information age competition. During the industrial age, from 1850 to about 1975, companies succeeded by how well they could capture the benefits from economies of scale and scope. Technology mattered, but, ultimately, success accrued to companies that could embed the new technology into physical assets that offered efficient, mass production of standard products.
During the industrial age, financial control systems were developed in companies, such as General Motors, DuPont, Matsushita, and General Electric, to facilitate and monitor efficient allocations of financial and physical capital. A summary financial measure such as return-on-capital employed (ROCE) could both direct a company’s internal capital to its most productive use and monitor the efficiency by which operating divisions used financial and physical capital to create value for shareholders.
The emergence of the information era, however, in the last decades of the twentieth century, made obsolete many of the fundamental assumptions of industrial age competition. No longer could companies gain sustainable competitive advantage by merely deploying new technology into physical assets rapidly, and by excellent management of financial assets and liabilities.”

David P. Norton (1941) American business theorist, business executive and management consultant

Source: The Balanced Scorecard, 1996, p. 2-3

Antonio Negri photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo

“Pro-slavery impulse still governs the Democratic Party, the party of government sinecures. It is the party that wants to use political power to tax us not for any common good, but to eat while we work. Consider the Great Society and its legacy. In the fall of 1964, I was on the speech-writing staff of the Goldwater campaign. In September and October I went on a number of forays to college campuses, where I debated spokesmen for our opponents. My argument always started from here. In 1964 the economy, thanks to the Kennedy tax cuts, was growing at the remarkable annual rate of four percent. But federal revenues were growing at 20 percent; five times as fast. The real issue in the election, I said, was what was to happen to that cornucopia of revenue. Barry Goldwater would use it to reduce the deficit and to further reduce taxes; Lyndon Johnson would use it to start vast new federal programs. At that point I could not say what programs, but I knew that the real purpose of them would be to create a new class of dependents upon the Democratic Party. The ink was hardly dry on the election returns before Johnson invented the war on poverty; and proved my prediction correct. One did not need to be cynical to see that the poor were not a reason for the expansion of bureaucracy; the expansion of bureaucracy was a reason for the poor. Every failure to reduce poverty was always represented as another reason to increase expenditures on the poor. The ultimate beneficiary was the Democratic Party. Every federal bureaucrat became in effect a precinct captain, delivering the votes of his constituents. His job was to enlarge the pool of constituents. But every increase in that pool meant a diminution of our property and our freedom.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)

Naomi Klein photo
Nico Perrone photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Ron Paul photo

“Liberty once again must become more important to us than the desire for security and material comfort. Personal safety and economic prosperity can only come as the consequence of liberty. They cannot be provided by an authoritarian government… The foundation for a police state has been put in place, and it's urgent we mobilize resistance before it's too late… Central planning is intellectually bankrupt – and it has bankrupted our country and undermined our moral principles. Respect for individual liberty and dignity is the only answer to government force, force that serves the politically and economically powerful. Our planners and rulers are not geniuses, but rather demagogues and would-be dictators -- always performing their tasks with a cover of humanitarian rhetoric… The collapse of the Soviet system came swiftly and dramatically, without a bloody conflict… It came as no surprise, however, to the devotees of freedom who have understood for decades that socialism was doomed to fail… And so too will the welfare/warfare state fail… A free society is based on the key principle that the government, the president, the Congress, the courts, and the bureaucrats are incapable of knowing what is best for each and every one of us… A government as a referee is proper, but a government that uses arbitrary force to direct every aspect of society threatens freedom… The time has come for a modern approach to achieving those values that all civilized societies seek. Only in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness… The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom loving individuals. When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is freedom that is the source of all creative energy. If I am to be your president, these are the goals I would seek. I reject the notion that we need a president to run our lives, plan the economy, or police the world… It is much more important to protect individual liberty and privacy than to make government even more secretive and powerful.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Video Address Announcing 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee, February 19, 2007 http://blog.4president.org/2008/2007/02/ron_paul_video_.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPlPT4bncq8
2000s, 2006-2009

N. Gregory Mankiw photo
Jill Vogel photo
Rupert Murdoch photo

“The greatest thing to come out of this [the war in Iraq] for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country.”

Rupert Murdoch (1931) Australian-American media mogul

Source: Murdoch praises Blair's 'courage' http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/feb/12/uk.iraqandthemedia

Pasuya Yao photo

“Taipei is not only the nation's capital, but also the engine of its economy. Yet, in the past few years the city's economy has shrunk and has been surpassed by New Taipei City.”

Pasuya Yao (1965) Taiwanese politician

Pasuya Yao (2017) cited in " Pasuya Yao throws hat in mayoral ring http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2017/07/24/2003675199" on Taipei Times, 24 July 2017

Thomas Robert Malthus photo
Alex Salmond photo

“Gaelic language and culture is inseparable from the future success of the Scottish economy.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Lecture (December 19, 2007)

“I believe that monetary policy has a chronic defect. It is asymmetric—it works better in restraining an economy than in stimulating an economy.”

Lawrence Klein (1920–2013) American economist

"Keynsianism Again: Interview with Lawrence Klein", Challenge (May-June 2001)

Bernie Sanders photo

“What we have seen is that while the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, we have seen a huge increase in income and wealth inequality, which is now reaching obscene levels. This is a rigged economy, which works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans … You know, this country just does not belong to a handful of billionaires.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

[Staff, Bernie Sanders confirms presidential run and damns America's inequities, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/30/bernie-sanders-confirms-presidential-run-and-damns-americas-inequities, 29 April 2015, the Guardian, 2 May 2015]
2010s, 2015

Robert Solow photo
Robert A. Dahl photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Barney Frank photo
Tony Benn photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“There are different views about what's good for our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. And I think it's important to look at what we need to do to get the economy going again.”

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

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

“The opposing tendencies of concentration and spread are of little consequence in the liberal model of political economy.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

Source: The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), Chapter Three, Dynamics Of Political Economy, p. 94

Aron Ra photo

“I was born in the richest, most technologically advanced (and consequently the most powerful) country in the world. We were the leaders in science, so of course we had a better economy, and we had a higher standard of living than anyone else at that time. The rest of the globe sent their best and brightest to enroll in our schools because our students were among the most inventive, innovative and involved. Some of the greatest American scientists were the immigrants who stayed and enabled the United States to achieve more than anyone else had in the history of mankind. That's when our secular government still cared about better education. Sadly, that is not the country I still live in. America was number one, but saying that now reminds me of Aesop's fable where the hare is still resting on its laurels long after the tortoise has passed. In the fifty years since I was born, America's rating in science has fallen from number one to number thirty-seven. We have one of the lowest science scores of all countries in the developed world (or first world). Foreign scholars and foreign scientists don't stay here long after graduation (if they come at all), because what sort of environment do we offer intellectuals now? Our own scientists, our own graduate scholars are leaving as well, moving to Europe or Asia where they're more welcome, although an American going abroad now means that he will have to try to live down new stereotype instead of living up to the old one.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Don't Blame the Atheists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Ca88xNw_w (October 21, 2012)

Sarah Vowell photo

“I talk about going to his Inauguration and crying when he took the oath, 'cause I was so afraid he was going to "wreck the economy and muck up the drinking water"… the failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind now.”

Sarah Vowell (1969) American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator

Referring to George W. Bush on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart http://www.cc.com/video-clips/e88k08/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-sarah-vowell (2006-02-21)

Paul Krugman photo

“So let's start telling the truth: competitiveness is a meaningless word when applied to national economies. And the obsession with competitiveness is both wrong and dangerous.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Pop Internationalism (1996), Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession (1994)

Narendra Modi photo
Robert Solow photo
Benjamin R. Barber photo
Wang Ju-hsuan photo

“It's our (Council of Labor Affairs) responsibility to take care of financially disadvantaged families. We've seen a better economy and we know there must be changes.”

Wang Ju-hsuan (1961) Taiwanese politician

Wang Ju-hsuan (2011) cited in " Minimum wage to be increased by five percent http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2011/07/22/310668/Minimum-wage.htm" on The China Post, 22 July 2011.

William Carlos Williams photo
Ron Kaufman photo
Paul Krugman photo

“We’re now in the seventh year of a slump brought on by Wall Street excess; the wizardly job of “allocating the economy’s investment resources” consisted, we now know, largely of funneling money into a real estate bubble.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Iron Men of Wall Street" http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/iron-men-of-wall-street/, 16 February 2014
The Conscience of a Liberal blog

A. James Gregor photo

“In 1934, Mussolini reiterated that capitalism, as an economic system, was no longer viable. Fascist economy was to be based not on individual profit but on collective interest.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism, (1969), p. 299

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis photo
Chen Shui-bian photo

“I would like to use this opportunity to emphasise again the determination of the government to work with the private sectors to improve the economy.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

During the opening of Longan Season in Nantau, August 30, 2003
Pet Phrases, 2003

Marsha Blackburn photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Ron Paul photo
Clint Eastwood photo
Jeremy Rifkin photo
Keir Hardie photo
Richard Overy photo

“The economics of Italian Fascism is often ignored or trivialized because so much of it is found in today's world economies.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

“The Socialist Economics of Italian Fascism,” Library of Economics and Liberty, July 6, 2015 http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2015/Samuelsfascism.html

W. Brian Arthur photo
Murray N. Rothbard photo
Michael Bloomberg photo
Alfred P. Sloan photo
W. Brian Arthur photo
Jack Layton photo
Dmitry Medvedev photo
Mao Zedong photo

“A dangerous tendency has shown itself of late among many of our personnel -- an unwillingness to share weal and woe with the masses, a concern for personal fame and gain. This is very bad. One way of overcoming it is to streamline our organizations in the course of our campaign to increase production and practice economy, and to transfer cadres to lower levels so that a considerable number will return to productive work. We must see to it that all our cadres and all our people constantly bear in mind that ours is a large socialist country but an economically backward and poor one, and that this is a very big contradiction. To make China prosperous and strong needs several decades of hard struggle, which means, among other things, pursuing the policy of building up our country through diligence and thrift, that is, practicing strict economy and fighting waste.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 在我们的许多工作人员中间,现在滋长着一种不愿意和群众同甘苦,喜欢计较个人名利的危险倾向,这是很不好的。我们在增产节约运动中要求精简机关,下放干部,使相当大的一批干部回到生产中去,就是克服这种危险倾向的一个方法。要使全体干部和全体人民经常想到我国是一个社会主义的大国,但又是一个经济落后的穷国,这是一个很大的矛盾。要使我国富强起来,需要几十年艰苦奋斗的时间,其中包括执行厉行节约、反对浪费这样一个勤俭建国的方针。

Chen Shui-bian photo

“Now I am a grandfather, I am very content. I can focus on improving the economy in Taiwan now.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

After his daughter gave birth to his grandson, October 7, 2002
Pet Phrases, 2002

Ian Bremmer photo

“The great thing about the U. S. economy right now is that we are the smart kids in the stupid-kid class. America has fiscal problems and gridlock issues and polarity and partisanship in Congress -- and yet, compared to Japan and Europe, the U. S. looks great.”

Ian Bremmer (1969) American political scientist

"Capitalism's State of Play," http://online.barrons.com/article/SB127206429298081857.html#articleTabs_panel_article%3D1 Barron's (April 24, 2010).

Ralph Waldo Trine photo
Arthur Scargill photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“In my opinion the Government can do more to remedy the economic ills of the people by a system of rigid economy in public expenditure than can be accomplished through any other action. The costs of our national and local governments combined now stand at a sum close to $100 for each inhabitant of the land. A little less than one-third of this is represented by national expenditure, and a little more than two-thirds by local expenditure. It is an ominous fact that only the National Government is reducing its debt. Others are increasing theirs at about $1,000,000,000 each year. The depression that overtook business, the disaster experienced in agriculture, the lack of employment and the terrific shrinkage in all values which our country experienced in a most acute form in 1920, resulted in no small measure from the prohibitive taxes which were then levied on all productive effort. The establishment of a system of drastic economy in public expenditure, which has enabled us to pay off about one-fifth of the national debt since 1919, and almost cut in two the national tax burden since 1921, has been one of the main causes in reestablishing a prosperity which has come to include within its benefits almost every one of our inhabitants. Economy reaches everywhere. It carries a blessing to everybody.”

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)

Fryderyk Skarbek photo
Tony Blair photo
Peter F. Drucker photo

“There is every indication that the period ahead will be an innovative one, one of rapid change in technology, society, economy, and institutions.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 3, p. 803 (last page)

Kelli Ward photo
Richard Cobden photo
Leonid Hurwicz photo
David Orrell photo

“To balance the economy, we need first to balance our priorities, and abandon rigid ideologies.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 10, Good Versus Evil, p. 313

Narendra Modi photo

“In 2014, one of the key agendas of the BJP’s election campaign was highlighting the dismal management of the Indian economy, ironically under an ‘economist’ prime minister and a ‘know-it-all’ finance minister. We all knew that the economy was in the doldrums but since we were not in government, we naturally did not have the complete details of the state of the economy. But, what we saw when we formed the government left us shocked! The state of the economy was much worse than expected. Things were terrible. Even the budget figures were suspicious. When all of this came to light, we had two options – to be driven by Rajneeti (political considerations) or be guided by Rashtraneeti (putting the interests of India First)… Rajneeti, or playing politics on the state of the economy in 2014, would have been extremely simple as well as politically advantageous for us. We had just won a historic election, so obviously the frenzy was at a different level. The Congress Party and their allies were in big trouble. Even for the media, it would have made news for months on end. On the other hand, there was Rashtraneeti, where more than politics and one-upmanship, reform was needed. Needless to say, we preferred to think of ‘India First’ instead of putting politics first. We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy. The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I’ in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi, Swarajya Interviews Prime Minister Modi, Interview, R Jagannathan- Jul 02, 2018 https://swarajyamag.com/economy/swarajya-interviews-prime-minister-modi-the-state-of-indian-economy
2018

Muhammad Qutb photo
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps photo
Richard Cobden photo
Jorge Majfud photo
Michio Kaku photo

“I say looking at the next 100 years that there are two trends in the world today. The first trend is toward what we call a type one civilization, a planetary civilization… The danger is the transition between type zero and type one and that’s where we are today. We are a type zero civilization. We get our energy from dead plants, oil and coal. But if you get a calculator you can calculate when we will attain type one status. The answer is: in about 100 years we will become planetary. We’ll be able to harness all the energy output of the planet earth. We’ll play with the weather, earthquakes, volcanoes. Anything planetary we will play with. The danger period is now, because we still have the savagery. We still have all the passions. We have all the sectarian, fundamentalist ideas circulating around, but we also have nuclear weapons. …capable of wiping out life on earth. So I see two trends in the world today. The first trend is toward a multicultural, scientific, tolerant society and everywhere I go I see aspects of that birth. For example, what is the Internet? Many people have written about the Internet. Billions and billions of words written about the Internet, but to me as a physicist the Internet is the beginning of a type one telephone system, a planetary telephone system. So we’re privileged to be alive to witness the birth of type one technology… And what is the European Union? The European Union is the beginning of a type one economy. And how come these European countries, which have slaughtered each other ever since the ice melted 10,000 years ago, how come they have banded together, put aside their differences to create the European Union? …so we’re beginning to see the beginning of a type one economy as well…”

Michio Kaku (1947) American theoretical physicist, futurist and author

"Will Mankind Destroy Itself?" http://bigthink.com/videos/will-mankind-destroy-itself (29 September 2010)

David Orrell photo

“To build a genuinely sustainable economy, we need to recognize and embrace the dynamic nature of the world, and free ourselves from the dead holds of static dogma.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 6, At Rest Versus In Motion, p. 200

Mahinda Rajapaksa photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
John B. Cobb photo
David Ricardo photo

“The opinions that the price of commodities depends solely on the proportion of supply and demand, or demand to supply, has become almost an axiom in political economy, and has been the source of much error in that science.”

David Ricardo (1772–1823) British political economist, broker and politician

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXX, Influence of Demand and Supply, p. 260

Fidel Castro photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“Along came the Republicans, trickle-down economics — one of the worst ideas since snake oil — was put back into place. And we ended up with the great recession. President Obama had to rescue the economy. And I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves for doing that.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

John Ralston Saul photo
Paul Mason (journalist) photo

“The world economy diffuses rather than concentrates wealth.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

Source: The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), Chapter Three, Dynamics Of Political Economy, p. 85

Bernie Sanders photo
David Harvey photo

“The invocation of social necessity should alert us. It contains the seeds for Marx's critique of political economy as well as for his dissection of capitalism.”

David Harvey (1935) British anthropologist

Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 1, Commodities, Values And Class Relations, p. 15