Charles Koch Quotes

It’s hard to be a fan of the free market these days when the free market has just driven the economy over the cliff.

From time to time, capitalism has a tendency to implode.

When things are going well, the companies stress the idea of free enterprise, with no need for government regulation. But when things aren’t going well, they suddenly become a close partner with the government and want it to bail them out. All they have to do is threaten to collapse and the government pours in more money.

When Americans—or citizens of any country—are faced with significant economic forces beyond their control, they struggle for answers, and often act out of frustration. The result is more turbulent politics, more strident cultural nationalism, and violence, as people seek ways to improve their economic situation … when the pie is shrinking.

Economic freedom is a highly desirable state -- but in bust and boom we must be prepared to face the its consequences.

When the new states of Europe were created by the Treaty of Versailles their new governments, lacking revenue and not daring to impose direct taxes on their people, resorted to the dangerous expedient of imposing high taxes at the border on merchandise seeking to enter their markets from abroad. An immediate slowing down of commerce resulted.

Monopolies—the worst of all taxes.

[It] is exactly what politicians want. They want you to feel and behave like children while they pretend to be the all-knowing benevolent father. While they rile you up about how immigrants are stealing your jobs, they distract you from enlightening facts, including the assessment of some experts that the influx of Latino immigrant workers of the past 25 years has had less effect on employment patterns than factories that moved abroad, the decline of labor unions and the recurring recessions. So while we’re told to focus on building a massive wall to keep out immigrants, the real causes of job loss and economic instability continue unabated.

We have institutions that have been allowed to become too big to fail because we had all kinds of flaws in our financial infrastructure, in the whole way over-the-counter derivatives work.

At some risk of oversimplification, I suggest that the usual reason a business cycle turns into a monster is an overdose of government policy.

The way you create deflation is you create an asset bubble.

The rise in the price of gold is a sign that capitalism has stumbled.

In Western capitalism circa 2013, fear that the market economy has become dysfunctional is not limited to a few entrepreneurs in Boulder. It is being publicly expressed, with increasing frequency, by some of the people who occupy the commanding heights of the global economy.

Latin Americans are all too familiar with the boom and bust cycles associated with economic populism.

Lunchroom economic conversations are inevitably graced with at least one statement from an old-timer along the lines of, 'In my day, we walked 10 miles in the snow just to get to the recession.' In fact, the nature of recessions hasn't changed much over the years.

Capitalism doesn't function when it starts to contract, and we can see that quite clearly right here in the eurozone. It's like pushing a giant monster under water that's gasping for air. It goes nuts.

Just as any revolution eats its children, unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.

On the political as on the economic front it's important not to fall into the "not as bad as" trap. High unemployment isn't O.K. just because it hasn't hit 1933 levels; ominous political trends shouldn’t be dismissed just because there’s no Hitler in sight.

Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.

The onset of a crisis is usually triggered by a spectacular failure which shakes confidence in fictitious forms of capital.

Inflation has ... become the cruelest tax, destroying the value of the dollar and adding new costs to every purchase.

The idea that when people see prices falling they will stop buying those cheaper goods or cheaper food does not make much sense. And aiming for 2 percent inflation every year means that after a decade prices are more than 25 percent higher and the price level doubles every generation. That is not price stability, yet they call it price stability. I just do not understand central banks wanting a little inflation.

When people don’t pay the true cost of something, they tend to consume it inefficiently.

Prolonged inflation never 'stimulates' the economy. On the contrary, it unbalances, disrupts, and misdirects production and employment.

Families are always rising and falling in America.