Showing posts with label Economist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economist. Show all posts

Sunday, August 2, 2015

22 Quotes to Celebrate Milton Friedman Day

July 31 is known as a day to honor conservative economist Milton Friedman, as he would have been 103 years old if he were still living today.
Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in economics, specifically for “his achievements in the field of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.”
He served as an advisor to President Nixon in the White House and was the president of the American Economic Association before becoming a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Friedman was known for his defense of the free market and call for school choice through a voucher programs.
To honor this great man, here are 22 of his most notable quotes regarding the economy, government, and life.
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  1. “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
  2. “The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way.”
  3. “Governments never learn. Only people learn.”
  4. “Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”
  5. “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
  6. “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
  7. “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstance and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.”
  8. “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
  9. “If all we want are jobs, we can create any number—for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs—jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.”
  10. “The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.”
  11. “When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in theSoviet Union—like public housing in the United States—look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.”
  12. “Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.”
  13. “The lack of balance in governmental activity reflects primarily the failure to separate sharply the question what activities it is appropriate for government to finance from the question what activities it is appropriate for government to administer—a distinction that is important in other areas of government activity as well.”
  14. “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”
  15. “Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy.”
  16. “I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.”
  17. “The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.”
  18. “Underlying most arguments against the free marketis a lack of belief in freedom itself.”
  19. “I think that the Internet is going to be one of themajor forces for reducing the role of government.”
  20. Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”
  21. “Inflation is taxation without legislation.”
  22. “Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.”

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Weekly Jobless Claims Drop Proves to Be Short-Lived


Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped 46,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the highest in four months. The increase represents a rebound from the previous week's sharp drop. Both swings were largely due to technical factors.

Unemployed Americans attend a National Career Fair
Mark Ralston | AFP | Getty Images
Unemployed Americans attend a National Career Fair

The Labor Department says the four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, fell slightly to 365,500, a level consistent with modest hiring.
Last week, California reported a large drop in applications, pushing down the overall figure to the lowest since February 2008.

This week, it reported a significant increase as it processed applications delayed from the previous week. (Read More: Why Jobless Claims May Not Be as Good as Market Thinks.)

A department spokesman says the seasonally adjusted numbers "are being distorted ... by an issue of timing."

Many economists believe a reading below 400,000 points to an improving labor market. The four-week moving average of new claims, which smoothes out volatility and is considered a better measure of labor market trends, rose just 750 last week to 365,500.
"Improvement in the labor market will continue to be fitful and slow," said Joseph Trevisani, a market strategist at Worldwide Markets in Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

Applications are a proxy for layoffs. When they decline, it suggests hiring is improving.




Tuesday, October 9, 2012

WSJ Economist: No Grounds for Obama's Tax on Wealthy

Wall Street Journal economics expert Stephen Moore tells Newsmax that there is “no case on economic grounds” to heed President Barack Obama’s call for higher taxes on wealthier Americans.

He says raising those rates would simply encourage wealthier taxpayers to hide their money and wouldn’t boost revenues as predicted by “the anti-Clinton” — President Obama.

And he warns that the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts next year could cause a double-dip recession.

Urgent Poll: Who Won the Presidential Debate? Vote Here!

Moore is a senior economics writer and editorial board member for The Wall Street Journal. He is the founder and former president of the Club for Growth and a best-selling author. He also wrote the cover story for Newsmax magazine’s October issue.

Moore’s new book is “Who's The Fairest of Them All: The Truth about Opportunity, Taxes and Wealth in America.”

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Moore was asked if Obama and the Democrats are advocating higher taxes on the wealthy to improve the economy or to win over middle-class voters.

“I don’t think anybody thinks that raising tax rates will improve the economy. At least I certainly hope no one does because the history is so unequivocal that that’s not the case,” Moore says.

Read more on Newsmax.com: WSJ Economist Moore: No Grounds Logic for Obama's Tax on Wealthy
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

Via: Newsmax

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