Paul Samuelson Quotes
Rent control created deadweight loss.
Samuelson, Paul A., and William D. Nordhaus. Economics. McGraw-Hill.
Brandeis was U. S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1856-1941, who wrote that competition would control prices if only healthy competition could be maintained—the problem was resolved by both increasing competition and much more stringent regulation of corporations.
Manava Dharma Shastra. Ancient Hindu India had what may well have been the most regulated mercantile economy of any society in history. All prices for all goods were to be set by the king. In order to prevent the stultifying effect of price controls, the Hindus required that the prices be reset very frequently to reflect various market conditions. It was a highly regulated form of capitalism. This text is a part of the Hindu Holy Texts. Hindus believe that Manu was a prophet whose text is revealed or inspired.
Collection of Spoken Words of the Prophet. Ironically, despite the reverence with which words of the Hadith are accorded in Islam, from time to time Muslim theologians and authorities have attempted to establish “fair prices” despite this free market view of the Prophet.
These appear to be the first economic regulations of New England. Note that although there was a Governor of the Colony, such economic issues were considered to be fundamentally religious in nature. Therefore Cotton—the leading cleric of the colony—was called upon to in effect legislate on the subject. Ironically, this is not terribly different from the theocracy in Iran or some other Muslim countries of today where like some of the early American Colonies, there was no separation of church and state.
The Black Plague, which raged in Europe from 1347 to 1349, had left relatively few able bodied people alive. Given this shortage of labor there was a rapid inflation, especially to the distress of the landed class who had to pay much more for their food. The king therefore established what amounted to price controls, wage controls and forces labor. See {611125} and {611126}
Whenever price controls have been tried, there always seems to develop a black market. However, some argue that price controls can work very well for a modest period of time in a national emergency and give WWII as an example. Although there was a black market, very few Americans participated in it, and the effect was positive as a result of the patriotism that was so keenly felt by most Americans at that time. Further, capital punishment has rarely worked to prevent any illegal activity. In London, pickpockets were publicly hung while other pickpockets fleeced the crowd watching the hanging ostensibly to dissuade people from pickpocketing.
Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "has done more than any other contemporary economist to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory". Economic historian Randall E. Parker has called him the "Father of Modern Economics", and The New York Times considers him to be the "foremost academic economist of the 20th century".
