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
The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that the complexities surrounding money are often used to obscure the truth about its creation and function.
John Kenneth Galbraith highlights the idea that the subject of money within economics is intentionally complex to prevent clear understanding of its true nature. He suggests that while the process by which banks create money is fundamentally simple, the intricacies involved serve to mislead rather than clarify, showing how complexity can act as a barrier to transparency.
Themes
MoneyEconomicsTruthComplexityBanks
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a financial literacy workshop to address the misconceptions about how money works.
More from John Kenneth Galbraith
All quotes →If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
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.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
Similar quotes
Governments don't reduce deficits by raising taxes on the people; governments reduce deficits by controlling spending and stimulating new wealth.
Ronald ReaganRead
Most high-income people in our country do not realize that their incomes are being subsidized by their protection from competition from highly skilled people who are prevented from immigrating to the United States. But we need such skills in order to staff our productive economy, so that the standard of living for Americans as a whole can grow.
Alan GreenspanRead
People who are rich find it hard to understand the behavior of poor people. Economists are no exception, for they, too, find it difficult to comprehend the preferences and scarcity constraints that determine the choices that poor people make.
Theodore SchultzRead
No matter how the financial system is set up, no matter what the economic system is, as long as you have people, you're going to have financial crises; you're going to have bubbles that manifest themselves in the financial system.
Henry PaulsonRead
How very popular to say, 'spend more on this, expend more on that.' And of course, we all have our favorite causes; I know I do. But someone has to add up the figures. Every business has to do it, every housewife has to do it, [and] every government should do it.
Margaret ThatcherRead
What drags down our entire economy is when there's an ever-widening chasm between the ultra-rich and everybody else.
Barack ObamaRead