To a person of analytical ability, perceptive enough to realise that mathematical equipment was a powerful sword in economics, the world of economics was his or her oyster in 1935. The terrain was strewn with beautiful theorems begging to be picked up and arranged in unified order.
My family was well off but not rich. I spent the four years I was an undergraduate working on the beach. And it wasn't because I was lazy; it was because my freshman class would go to a hundred different employers and wouldn't get a nibble. That was a disequilibrium system. I realized that the ordinary old-fashioned Euclidean geometry didn't apply.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the challenges faced by students in finding job opportunities despite their background and education.
Paul Samuelson's quote illustrates the difficulties many students encounter when they enter the job market, despite being well-educated. He emphasizes that traditional methods of job searching might not work in a changing economic landscape, where supply and demand do not match up effectively. This statement sheds light on the complexities of employment where even diligent efforts can lead to frustrating outcomes, thus highlighting a misalignment in the job market.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a university seminar discussing job readiness, this quote can emphasize the competitive nature of the job market.
More from Paul Samuelson
All quotes βI can't think of a president who has been overburdened by a knowledge of economics.
My belief is that nothing that can be expressed by mathematics cannot be expressed by careful use of literary words.
Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.
Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.
There's nothing in Keynesian economics that would allow you to solve stagflation. But there's nothing in neoclassical economics that would allow you to solve stagflation, either.
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Fifty percent of all meaningful education takes place in the home. What do you share with your child? You share your interests. I was a book person. I read with my son. My wife is an artist. She dragged his little butt around to museums. He's an illustrator of children's books.
The more you read, the more you will write. The better the stuff you read, the better the stuff you will write.
I wanted to be the exception to the other kids, but in the right way._x000D_ _x000D_ We have a lot of suffering in our part of the world, but that suffering is, in a way, a blessing. _x000D_ _x000D_ Obviously, I could not afford to go to school without a scholarship, so that meant I had to excel in order to get one.
Adults, who outnumber kids four or five to one, are in charge. We wield the resources, run the world, and completely thwart kids' creativity.
I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our concept of the richness in human capacity.
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.