Steve Hanke Quotes

The history of economic growth is the history of people making more with less and shifting into new jobs that were unheard of in the previous generation.

Mass prosperity came with the mass innovation that sprung up in 1815 in Britain, soon after in America, and later in Germany and France: It brought sustained growth to these nations - also to nations with entrepreneurs willing and able to copy the innovations.

Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs, and wealth.

If you ask an economist what's driven economic growth, it's been major advances in things that mattered - the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.

How did the economy produce all these amazing things that we have around us - computers and cell phones and so on? There were a bunch of ideas, and the good ones grew and prospered. And the bad ones were pretty ruthlessly weeded out.

America's growth historically has been fueled mostly by investment, education, productivity, innovation and immigration. The one thing that doesn't seem to have anything to do with America's growth rate is a brutal work schedule.

The United States is like a giant steam generator. Once the fire has been lighted under it, there is no limit to the amount of power it can generate.

The thing which has made Labor great & powerful is labor-saving machinery--& nothing else in the world could have done it. It has been labor's savior, benefactor; but Labor doesn't know it, & would ignorantly crucify it. But that is human & natural.

Regardless of how it is funded, consumption does not increase productivity; investment and innovation do.

Properly targeted public investment can do much to boost economic performance, generating aggregate demand quickly, fueling productivity growth by improving human capital, encouraging technological innovation, and spurring private-sector investment by increasing returns.

The last 200 years, we've had an incredible amount of automation. We have tractors that do the work that horses and people used to do on farms. We don't dig ditches by hand anymore. We don't pound tools out of wrought iron. We don't do bookkeeping with books! But this has not, in net, reduced the amount of employment.

Technology is probably the single biggest driver of productivity gains for the developed countries. For example, I think it's much more important than free trade.

Productivity growth is the only possible way to achieve prosperity.

Our private-sector work force is the most industrious, innovative, productive, and ambitious in the world.

As a nation, America is at its best when we are thinking and making things and exporting to the world.

Growth without diversification, technological improvement, and increased productivity is easily reversed: all it takes is a dip in commodity prices.

It is through technological innovation and the pursuit of sustainable social, economic, and ecological development that we can chart the country's path to progress and power a greener tomorrow.

Israel is a producer of growth.

We adapt to technological progress by raising our minimum standards of living and working to stay above this rising threshold.

We need constant change, technological innovation capability, and high productivity to survive in the fierce competitive environment.

If productivity grows, the economy does well.

That's what technology does to you - makes you lazy but allows you to innovate.

There are signs jobs will be plentiful in the future, if we train and prepare for it. That means investing in technology, innovation, and, as much as Republicans will hate to hear this, renewable energy.

Hungary has no raw materials and no major energy sources; we have some agricultural background. So what we produce here in Hungary is the result of our labor and minds, and then we have to sell it to the world. If we are not able to do that, if we are not innovative enough, if we are not modern and open enough, we can't do that.

If you think about it, many of the great inventions of the last 200 years were designed to replace human labor. Tractors were developed to substitute mechanical power for human physical toil.