Market Distortions Quotes

I'm not anti-Wall Street - I'm anti-distortions to free markets.

[Russian] Prices for manufactured goods are from two to three times higher [than the world prices]…. our industry is not commercially profitable. At the same time, every private small industry or merchant, notwithstanding the very unfavorable conditions under which he works within the Soviet system, continues to operate and succeeds in making a profit.

The government playing entrepreneur is not a good role for the government.

"Free markets" is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. Most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.

Yes, agriculture subsidies are far too generous. They need to be reined in because they cater to special interests while distorting free market competition. Yes, the farm laws are an anachronistic mess.

There is certainly a role for regulation, but regulation should always take into account the impact that it has on markets, a balance that must be constantly weighed.

When consumers do not take full advantage of efficiency gains, it is because they are weighing other factors that influence their decision making. When the federal government arbitrarily places one of those factors over others, it makes consumers worse off.

Subsidies should never be a permanent feature of any market. They should be introduced only to address market failure and they should be withdrawn gradually as those distortions in the market are addressed.

Government subsidies can be critically analyzed according to a simple principle: You are smarter than the government, so when the government pays you to do something you wouldn't do on your own, it is almost always paying you to do something stupid.

Far from trying to rig the system, I have spent decades opposing cronyism and all political favors, including mandates, subsidies and protective tariffs - even when we benefit from them.

Everyone in the Chinese economic world knows that the country is not going to move out of cheap-workhouse status, toward the realm of 'real' rich-country corporate power and prosperity, unless (among other changes) it begins removing these price distortions.

Government intervention in the economy - through taxes, regulation and, most importantly, currency inflation - causes distortions and misallocations of capital that must eventually be unwound. The distortions degrade the general standard of living, and the economy goes into a recession (call that an incomplete cleansing). Or it goes into a depression - wherein the entire sickly structure comes unglued.

Every restriction of trade creates vested interests that are from then onward opposed to its removal.

You know, I've got experiences going back to the wage price controls in the Nixon administration where, in effect, we had what I think was a terrible mistake, in that case a Republican administration, where moved in and tried to control the wages, prices and profits of every enterprise in America. It was a huge mistake.

Many markets work best with little or no outside interference. But others - especially those subject to big 'externalities' - need a helping hand.

Here, as everywhere, Protection involves this great disadvantage, that, once given, it is difficult to withdraw …. the system, once established, led to perpetual wrangling on the part of rival industries

Tariffs have almost never saved a domestic industry from decline and, often times, by sheltering domestic producers from competition, only reward and prolong bad business practices.

It is time that we dispensed with the myth that the market is a force of nature that should not be meddled with. Markets are social creations that can be, and have been, modified for social purposes.

When laissez-faire creates instability, the move to a freer market can be something less than pure gain.

I think on the efficiency level, not only the distribution level, capitalism is a flawed system. It probably has the same virtues as Churchill attributed to democracy: It's the worst system except for any other. And I think that's right, but it cannot be thought that some unmitigated belief in free markets is a cure even from the efficiency point of view.

With such enormous bucks devoted to trading in oil and other commodities, the distortions that they cause have been exacerbated.

The arguments for protection are more easily made attractive than those for free trade.

Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers.

Both excessively low prices and excessively high prices are disruptive to markets. It is therefore advisable that states not hold prices artificially low through subsidies or other methods of market intervention.

Internal protectionism in Europe would be deadly, really a disaster for European economies.