Joseph Stiglitz Quotes

In this way, the charge that the bank makes for the use of its notes - the interest - is a continual and universal tax upon all the members of the community.

The American banking system, which at one time extended productive loans to agriculture and industry, has today become a giant betting machine

The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.

As much as the banking system may not be terribly popular, it is an essential part of the economy.

The lifeblood of the economy is that the banking community is a circulatory system for American capitalism.

I do think that the banking system is now in the most perilous state we've seen in over 70 years.

Genealogy of American Finance is a treasure trove of information on American banking and its history, in an unusual -- and unusually useful -- format.

It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.

In truth, money is not created until the instant it is borrowed. It is the act of borrowing which causes it to spring into existence. And, incidentally, it is the act of paying off the debt that causes it to vanish.

The idea of creating a national bank I do not concur in, because it seems now decided that Congress has not that power (although I sincerely wish they had it exclusively), and because I think there is already a vast redundancy rather than a scarcity of paper medium.

The emblem of a philosophy is not that it contains a set of specific thoughts , but that it generates a way of thinking.

As I think all Americans understand on both sides of the aisle, the Social Security system as it is structured today is a pay-as-you-go system.

Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess

I came to the idea of how fine it would be to think of an encyclopedia of an actual world, and then of an encyclopedia, a very rigorous one of course, of an imaginary world, where everything should be linked.

People do not think in English or Chinese or Apache; they think in a language of thought. This language of thought probably looks a bit like all these languagesBut compared with any given language, mentalese must be richer in some ways and simpler in others.

I don't think the world objectively exists the way we think it exists. There's a constant sort of storytelling process.

Feudalism is an economic system where a few people own all the land and the others have no option but to be serfs on such a feudal estate. We now condemn feudalism. We condemn not merely the feudal lords but we condemn the whole structure of rules that sustained feudalism. I am asking people to think similarly about the world economy.

I got so much money I should start a bank. So much paper right in front of me it's hard to think.

When we think about the issues that matter, obviously the news covers immigration, a lot. You might think immigration is the only story that actually affects us but when you poll Latinos you'll see that education is the number one topic that they're interested in talking about and economy is the second issue.

I think the FDIC was one of the great inventions of the American.

I think any time you couple the term "Wall Street" with "bailout" or something like that, you know - I don't like what's going on in Wall Street.

The ideas dictate everything.

Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society.