Gavin Newsom Quotes

Everybody has to remember that economics is very tied to politics.

There is a big divergence between views on a variety of policy issues from fiscal stimulus to financial regulation. It's my hope and my ambition for the economics profession that as we advance our knowledge, that those discussions will narrow in their focus, and that it will help to have more prudent policy-making down the road.

The foundations of a strong economy don't rest alone on the decisions of Chancellors or the spending programmes of government.

Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.

In all modesty, we must admit that governments are not always the best doctors when it comes to diagnosing economic ailments and prescribing the right treatment.

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

People confuse economists and economic policy.

And taking more money out of the private economy and having the government perform as it has poorly done with the stimulus I don't think is the right way to go.

There isn’t that much that Washington can do to effect the economy.

You simply can’t run an economy as complicated as ours on ideology alone.

Whether a president can truly improve, or damage, an economy remains an open question.

The government needs to work to improve how markets perform.

I don't think most of Congress understands how economics works.

A finance minister should have a basic understanding of the country, know where the shoe pinches and, hence, have some compassion in policy formulation. An ability to understand economic issues should certainly be there.

Economic policy is like business - it's all about compromise.

Whatever the economy needs to maintain itself, the government will do it.

What the president announced yesterday, is that somehow magically, if we just continue to prime the pump of taxpayer dollars, we're going to see magically an economic recovery.

In response to the recession, the Obama administration chose to emphasize costly, short-term fixes - ineffective stimulus programs, myriad housing programs that went nowhere, and a rush to invest in 'green' companies. As a consequence, uncertainty over policy - particularly over tax and regulatory policy - slowed the recovery.

Successful economies in the modern world are not sheepish about the power and responsibility of the state.

History speaks pretty clearly that the markets do better with Democrats. Republicans' ideas of what constitutes fiscal responsibility simply are not good for the stock market. Democrats have many tendencies, but one of them is to look after the workers, and actually that tends to be good for demand and good for markets.

Economics pretends to be a science. Its practitioners fill blackboards with equations and clog computers with data. But it is really a faith, or more accurately a set of overlapping and squabbling faiths, each with its own doctrines.

I think the market driven economic system is the most productive system, but to have that work in the world, you've got to also have social investments to go along with that.

I think there's no question but what the tail end of the Bush administration, Bush-Cheney administration, that we took steps specifically geared to try and free up the financial sector.

Increased spending, growing government debt and overreaching regulations are stifling job creation and economic growth.

History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.