One of the little-celebrated powers of Presidents (and other high government officials) is to listen to their critics with just enough sympathy to ensure their silence.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that viewing the economy as fixed and unchanging is a significant mistake.
John Kenneth Galbraith argues that perceiving the economy as a stable and unchanging entity is a major flaw in economic thought. He suggests that the economy is in fact dynamic, influenced by human behavior, societal changes, and various external factors, and should be viewed as fluid rather than rigid.
In practice
In a lecture about economic theories, one could use this quote to challenge conventional thinking.
One of the little-celebrated powers of Presidents (and other high government officials) is to listen to their critics with just enough sympathy to ensure their silence.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.
Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.
The big bankers of the world, who practise the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no-one: they limit themselves to applauding the show.
The poor don't live in functional market economies as the rest of us do, but in political economies where corruption and broken systems extend from local government to moneylenders.
Eviction is part of a business model at the bottom of the market.
Customers often value a good more when its price goes up. One reason may be its signaling value. An expensive handcrafted mechanical watch may tell time no more accurately than a cheap quartz model; but, because few people can afford one, buying it signals that the owner is rich.
That's why the American Recovery & Reinvestment Plan won't just throw money at our problems, we'll invest in what works
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