"This view that the action of the Federal Reserve authorities in 1927 was responsible for the speculation and collapse which followed has never been seriously shaken. There are reasons why it is attractive. It is simple, and it exonerates both the American people and the economic system from substantial blame... Yet the explanation obviously assumes that people will always speculate if only they can get the money to finance it. Nothing could be farther from the case. There were times before and there has been long periods since when credit was plentiful and cheap—far cheaper than in 1927-29—and when speculation was negligible. Nor was speculation out of control after 1927, except that it was beyond the reach of men who did not want in the least to control it. The explanation is a tribute only to a recurrent preference, in economic matters, for formidable nonsense."
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Academics from the United StatesAcademics from CanadaEconomists from CanadaUnited States Ambassadors to IndiaEconomists from the United States
Original Language: English
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Chapter I, "Vision and Boundless Hope and Optimism" p. 10
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith
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John Kenneth Galbraith
1908 – 2006
kanadisch-amerikanischer Ökonom
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