economic misconception Quotes

Look, 85% percent of Democrats think the economy's fine. What does that tell you about these people?

A lot of times, my work is looked at very much on the surface. It's very easy to just want to put something in a box - to say, 'Oh, since this work deals with surface desires at times, this is about consumerism.' And of course, the base of the work is... not about economics at all.

Economics is half psychology and half Grade Three arithmetic, and the U.S. does not now have either half right.

Mere inflation-that is, the mere issuance of more money, with the consequence of higher wages and prices-may look like the creation of more demand. But in terms of the actual production and exchange of real things it is not.

It was self-serving politicians who convinced recent generations of Americans that we could all stand in a circle with our hands in each other’s pockets and somehow get rich.

When businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it's a little like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it's the other way around.

Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.

Every bubble consists of a trend that can be observed in the real world and a misconception relating to that trend. The two elements interact with each other in a reflexive manner.

The most obvious and yet the oldest and most stubborn error on which the appeal of inflation rests is that of confusing ‘money’ with ‘wealth’…Real wealth, of course, consists in what is produced and consumed: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in. It is railways and roads and motor cars; ships and planes and factories; schools and churches and theaters; pianos, paintings and books. Yet so powerful is the verbal ambiguity that confuses money with wealth, that even those who at times recognize the confusion will slide back into it in the course of their reasoning.

The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise ... economics is a form of brain damage.

A business does not start up because it needs to provide jobs for a community. That's not why it happens. It's another example of how woefully inept our economic education is. The left would have you believe that a corporation exists for health care.

Socialists try to convince us that the tea becomes sweet not because of sugar, but because of mixing.

People confuse economists and economic policy.

We rich people have been falsely persuaded by our schooling and the affirmation of society, and have convinced ourselves, that we are the main job creators. It's simply not true.

The popular notion is that imports are bad and exports are good.

But there still prevails, even in nations well acquainted with commerce, a strong jealousy with regard to the balance of trade, and a fear, that all their gold and silver may be leaving them. This seems to me, almost in every case, a groundless apprehension; and I should as soon dread, that all our springs and rivers should be exhausted, as that money should abandon a kingdom where there are people and industry.

What most entrepreneurs don't understand is that it isn't the economy that bursts a bubble, but investor psychology.

There was a hope then by some people that what we call trickle-down economics would work. That if you made the economy pie bigger, everybody would benefit. Twenty-five years after NAFTA, we know that that is not true. We should have known then that it was not true.

There's no such thing as a trade deficit.

There are many excuses for the person who made the mistake of confounding money and wealth. Like many others they mistook the sign for the thing signified.

Why does the UN need to raise money for ebola? Can't the gov just print the damn dollars themselves and get this done already.

The economic illusion is the belief that social justice is bad for economic growth.

We have a few young people who are very successful in it, and this gives us the wrong impression that the whole country can live off high tech.