Economics Quotes

"Many European countries and Japan need to free their labour markets and liberalise services to boost productivity growth."

"Free-trade enthusiasts fret that regional trade arrangements divert more trade than they create."

"War is a matter not so much of arms as of money."

Thucydides

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

“Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.”

“Inflation is the most universal tax of all. It is a way to take people's wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes.”

“Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved.”

“Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produce accounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.”

“Globalisation is simply opening the free marketplace to encompass the entire world.”

“The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods.”

“The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own.”

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin.”

“A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”

“The mere separation of the occupation of the cultivator from that of the artificer has the effect of augmenting the productive powers of labour.”

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

"Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, the conveniences, and the amusements of human life."

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

Milton Friedman

"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it."

“Inflation is taxation without legislation.”

Milton Friedman

“The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.”

Ben Bernanke

“There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.”

David Ricardo

“All money is a matter of belief.”

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

Friedrich Hayek