John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

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.

The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.

Long before folks fretted the demise of 'quantitative easing,' I fretted its existence. It proved the reverse of its image, an antistimulus, and we've done okay not because of it, but despite it.

Those who are lovers of trade and delight to see manufacturing encouraged will be for having a large addition to our currency.

The problem now is to shape our policy so as to avoid a calamitous break in the stock market … and at the same time accomplish if possible, the recovery of Europe.

Experience shows that high and unstable inflation can harm growth. A noninflationary macroeconomic policy is, therefore, a prerequisite for rapid development. Control of government borrowing is the crucial element in such a policy. When public borrowing is excessive, governments are soon obliged to finance it by printing money, and rising inflation then follows.

My focus is on the financial sector, on getting credit going, getting lending flowing. I can't imagine anything that would have a bigger stimulative impact.

The greatest economic power might in fact remain in the hands of the Federal Reserve. Economists credit the Fed's policy of keeping interest rates at historic lows with helping to pump up the economy and bring unemployment down.

Raising taxes does nothing to allow the economy to recover.

I don't think that the ECB should compensate for the lack of reforms in some countries... But it is clear that monetary policy can help countries and continents to rebound faster.

We have spent our time in government fixing the economy.

I think it will get moving faster. I mean once you get it off the - once credit flows - now the recession is going to get worse.

It's complicated.' 'So's quantitative easing. But I still get that it means printing money.

Now, I don't think President Obama and Vice President Biden get the credit they deserve for saving us from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. Our economy is so much stronger than when they took office.

In 2006, the Congress had approved plans to allow the Fed, beginning in 2011, to pay interest on banks' reserve balances. In the fall of 2008, the Congress moved up the effective date of this authority to October 2008.

In effect, there has been a significant shortfall in the overall amount of monetary policy stimulus since early 2009.

I will be the first to say that it is always difficult to get monetary policy just right. But the Fed's analytical prowess is top-notch, and our forecasting record is second to none.

In his second Inaugural Address, on March 5, 1821, Monroe admitted at last to a general depression of prices, but only as a means of explaining the great decline in the federal revenue. Despite this, he asserted that the situation of America presented a 'gratifying spectacle.'

By putting downward pressure on interest rates, the Fed is trying to make financial conditions more accommodative - supporting asset values and lower borrowing costs for households and businesses and thus encouraging the spending that spurs job creation and a stronger recovery.

To get great again, we need to recreate what made us great in the first place, and so we're going to have to let interest rates go up.

Look at the Weimar Republic and their hyperinflation in the early '20s. It didn't happen overnight. I've used the analogy, it's a lot like soybeans: you plant 'em, you wait. Conditions take some time. You need some sun; you need some water, but ultimately things start to grow, and are we in that phase or not?

There is no question that the recovery from the global recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis has been unusually lengthy and anemic.

If we were to raise interest rates too steeply, and we were to trigger a downturn or contribute to a downturn, we have limited scope for responding, and it is an important reason for caution.

The Fed's job is not to stall growth or to prevent economic 'overheating.' It is to keep prices stable and the dollar a strong and reliable currency.

Government does not create jobs, but it can help set the table for economic growth with the right policies.