Paul Samuelson Quotes

The BBC is locked to the reading of the economy that is run out of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls' office. They think if only you spend and borrow more money you can create growth everywhere.

The president's grand experiment in trickle-down government has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars.

Things swept so badly that I had distrust - after 1967, let's say - of American Keynesianism. For better or worse, U.S. Keynesianism was so far ahead of where it started. I am a cafeteria Keynesian.

I don't think Keynesian Monetarism has to be Democrat or Republican.

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

I am not a monetarist, and I am not a Keynesian. On certain points I agree with each.

What I object to the current government intervention in so-called 'solving the crisis', they haven't solved anything. They've just postponed it.

Popular as Keynesian fiscal policy may be, many economists are skeptical that it works. They argue that fine-tuning the economy is a virtually impossible task, and that fiscal-stimulus programs are usually too small, and arrive too late, to make a difference.

In a normal time, I don't think economic policy makes a large difference one way or another. But in times of crisis it makes all the difference in the world.

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement.

We used to think that we could spend our way out of a recession…. I tell you in all candor that that opinion no longer exists.

Faced with a deep recession, some say the answer is to expand the role of government.

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

What got us out of the depression was capitalism, and we would have gotten out a lot quicker had the government not intervened.

I'm happy to say I am a Harrison-Kreps-Keynesian.

It would probably strike the average politician as absurd to argue that the best way to fix the economy is to stop trying to 'fix it.'

The U.K. and almost all of Europe have erred in terms of believing that austerity, fiscal austerity in the short term, is the way to produce real growth. It is not. You've got to spend money.

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 truth of the matter of is that stimulus money not only doesn't stimulate; it actually reduces output.

I don't think Obama understands basic economics. Not economics that work. He may understand some theory that someone in Princeton sat and dreamed up, but it's not working.

I don't accept as an article of faith that lots of short-term stimulus boosts the economy and gets us back on the long-term trajectory.

It's become glib political conventional wisdom in Washington that a massive spending plan will provide a parachute rescue for a cliff-diving economy - landing it safely and with strong enough legs to move toward a healthy future.

I didn't wake up one day and say, you know, 'Supply-side economics doesn't make sense.'

The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.

I don't think that much change comes from economists. I think it comes more from political realities. Probably the two giants of the 20th century, who actually did shift government policy in the U.S. and around the world, were John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman. I don't see anybody in our system who is at that level of influence.