Economists From The United States

"Today 21% of [total] annual income goes to 1% of households. ...That cannot be the basis of a good democracy."

"[T]he current U.S. economic system... is incapable of providing a satisfactory life to... 44% of the population. ...[I]s that good enough for a $20 trillion economy... supposedly the richest in the world?"

"[R]andom allocation at the start of life cannot... be the basis of a good society."

"[I]n... 2017... 40% of the population evaluated their life as "struggling" and another 3%... "suffering.""

"Usually the relationship between the true unemployment rate and the official unemployment rate is 2:1."

"Here is the , 2008... the assets of the Federal Reserve is under $1 trillion... and within weeks you have more than a doubling of the assets of the Federal Reserve, and then comes 2 and... 3 and by that time you're at $4 1/2 trillion... and then... comes the Covid crisis and we're up to $7 trillion. Now... that kind of a Capitalism is unsustainable. ...[N]o wonder that there is asset inflation as a consequence... and the stock market went through the roof."

"They were also disregarding the real true unemployment rate... even in January of 2016, among African Americans 16%... were unemployed... so this is not full employment... and by education, among African Americans [those who did not finish high school] 32% were unemployed. Now you know why the George Floyds get into trouble with the law. They are not able to find their place in the legal labor market. ...So this is what Marty Feldstein and Donald Trump think of [as] a good economy. Not in my view!"

"The meltdown of 2008 was a wasted crisis... because the homeowners were not bailed out. The financial sector was bailed out, the banks... the bankers... but... 8 million homeowners were thrown out of their homes."

"In the United States, beginning with the birth cohorts of the 1830s, adult male stature declined, by more than two centimeters. Men appear to have been quite underweight... an average... of 126 pounds... in their late teen-age years, even though... the economy was expanding rapidly... (between 1840 and 1870, per capita net national product increased by more than 40%). In the Hapsburg Monarchy, the decline in stature during the second half of the eighteenth century was between three and five centimeters. A similar pattern was found for industrializing Montreal. The birth weight of infants there fell after the 1870s, indicating that the nutritional status of mothers was declining."

"Although a positive correlation between height and income has been amply documented... the correspondence has been found to be less than perfect... Thus some caveats are in order, because the distribution of income has also been found to affect the mean stature... and... the mix of calorie and intake matters to the growth process."

"Rapid economic growth brought about stress on the human organism, even though by conventional measures the standard of living was increasing."

"[W]hile income determines the position of the for food, an individual who purchases food at higher market prices might consume less of it than a self-sufficient peasant isolated from the market... even if the income of the former is greater..."

"[P]er-capita income can be an ambiguous measure of welfare during the early stages of economic development unless it moves in the same direction as the biological standard of living..."

"[I]n Europe the quantity of land under cultivation could be expanded only slowly; therefore, population growth ran again into Malthusian ceilings in the eighteenth century. The subsequent rise in food prices led to a decline in consumption, particularly of meat, because the for meat was much greater than that of grains."

"[S]o far all anthropometric studies have indicated substantial gender-based differences in the biological standard of living during episodes of economic change. ...[F]emales began to experience nutritional stress earlier than men during a downturn and were less likely to show improvements in an upswing."

"In all studies without exception, the positive relationship between social status and physical stature has been consistently documented in various societies and at different times. ...[E]ven in egalitarian America, social standing affected height throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the wake of the New Deal, these effects became less pronounced as became less skewed."

"[M]uch work remains to be done before we have even a complete of Europe and America. ...The contributions to this volume testify to the fact that much has already been accomplished. ...It is important that the research continue, inasmuch as it promises to illuminate a large number of problems."

"The financial crisis of 2008 illustrated... how markets often go haywire, yet textbooks remain unchanged, failing to convey the fundamental flaws and systematic weaknesses of the free-market system."

"[A]cademics and politicians continue to sing the praises of abstract markets as if... descended... from heaven while maintaining... silence about the fact that without government help, countless... corporations would have landed in the dustbin of history."

"[T]eachers of economics should admit... that while markets do well in some circumstances they only do so within an appropriate institutional framework and... in others... [they] often tip the stream of benefits toward a few insiders."

"[I]deology is unavoidable in economics because... [of] values and an organizing system of thought... preconceived notions of how the world works. This is unavoidable."

"Greenspan... out of hand and cold-bloodedly thwarted [warnings of , , Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, Robert Shiller, Joseph Stiglitz, Nassim Taleb, John Taylor, and] 's valiant efforts to regulate derivatives a decade before the meltdown."

"If one does not subject... ideology to empirical evidence... ideology becomes dogma."

"[W]e cannot help but... to organize our thoughts without making some fundamental assumptions... a function of our... mindset, worldview... intellectual and emotional commitments... [that] influence... ideas developed in the discipline."

"Pain... plays a major role in my thinking. I advocate its minimization."

"The growth-at-any-price perspective does not consider... distribution: economic growth will not help the destitute, the uneducated underclass, or the majority of those... unemployed."

"[C]hildren who are attending dysfunctional schools in dysfunctional neighborhoods, people... unable to catch their bearings in... the IT revolution and globalization, the working poor... trapped in a culture of poverty... ought not be treated like machines without feelings."

"My focus is on real human beings... rather than inanimate objects... as money or abstract concepts... which economists often substitute for the human dimension."

"I am encouraged to see South Africa taking steps to produce more electricity while finishing the closure of the 60-year-old Komati coal (power) plant. Moving toward an efficient lower carbon growth model will require large investments in new capacity and grid upgrades to absorb renewables. These are important steps to repair the ailing energy sector and provide reliable access to electricity for businesses and people. The Komati project recognizes the social challenges of the transition, especially for coal-reliant regions like Mpumalanga. Helping affected workers and communities is an important component of the project."

"The economics of the famous Chicago core curriculum had taken place during that first quarter. So to make up for my deficiency, I was put in an old-fashioned introductory course in economics. That worked out very well because the teacher was Aaron Director. He was a person who has never published anything important, but he was very influential. He really was the one who converted the first Chicago School of Frank Knight, Jacob Viner and Paul Douglas, which was pretty eclectic, into the second one, with Milton Friedman and so forth. I guess with Gary Becker et al. we’re at the third right now. So there I was, completely by chance, and I discovered the subject that interested me and that I would be good at. Economics is a subject which is quite attractive to somebody who is both interested in statistics, analysis, metrics, but also in people and policies. And so I became a very good student there."

"Each people would be thankful indeed to secure an early peace without humiliation a long way short of its extreme demands. There is thus every reason to believe that a vigorous initiative by representatives of the neutral powers of the world could at this moment begin a move toward negotiations and lead the way to a settlement which, please God, shall be a step toward a nobler and more intelligent civilization than we have yet enjoyed."

"A peace involving annexation of unwilling peoples could never be a lasting one."

"All the belligerents want peace, though probably with different intensity; none of them wants it enough to cry "I surrender.""

"If the disinterested neutrals, who alone are free to act for peace, wait for a moment when neither side has any advantage they will wait long indeed."

"Gains won by force create no claim that anyone is bound to respect"

"In one sense the present war is a conflict between the two great sets of belligerent powers, but in a different and very real sense it is a conflict between two conceptions of national policy. The catch words "democracy" and "imperialism" may be used briefly to indicate the opposing ideas. In every country both are represented, though in varying proportions, and in every country there is strife between them. In each belligerent nation there are those that want to continue the fight till military supremacy is achieved, in each there are powerful forces that seek a settlement of a wiser type which, instead of containing such threats to stability as are involved in annexation, humiliation of the enemy, and in competition in armaments, shall secure rational independence all round, protect the rights of minorities and foster international cooperation."

"The question of peace is a question of terms. Every country desires peace at the earliest possible moment at which it can be had on terms satisfactory to itself. Peace is possible the moment that each side would accept what the other would grant, but from the international or human point of view a satisfactory peace is possible only when these claims and concessions are such as to forward and not to hinder human progress."

"Another effect of war is that as between the two contending voices, the one is given a megaphone, the other is muffled if not gagged. Papers and platforms are open to "patriotic" utterances as patriotism is understood by the jingo; the moderate is silenced not alone by the censor, not alone by social pressure, but also by his own sense of the effect abroad of all that gives an impression of internal division and of a readiness to quit the fight."

"As the world community develops in peace, it will open up great untapped reservoirs in human nature. Like a spring released from pressure would be the response of a generation of young men and women growing up in an atmosphere of friendliness and security, in a world demanding their service, offering them comradeship, calling to all adventurous and forward-reaching natures."

"May no young man ever again be faced with the choice between violating his conscience by co-operating in competitive mass-slaughter or separating himself from those who, endeavouring to serve liberty, democracy, humanity can find no better way than to conscript young men to kill."

"We are not asked to subscribe to any Utopia or to believe in a perfect world just around the corner. We are asked to be patient with necessarily slow and groping advance on the road forward, and to be ready for each step ahead as it becomes practicable. We are asked to equip ourselves with courage, hope, readiness for hard work, and to cherish large and generous ideals."

"Everywhere war puts out of sight the moderates and the forces that make for peace and gives an exaggerated influence to militaristic and jingo forces creating a false impression of the pressure for extreme terms."

"The form of work for peace which has most obviously made history is the long continued effort to create some form of world organization which should both prevent wars and foster international cooperation."

"I feel it rather surprising that refusal of war has never taken the form, on any large scale, of refusal to pay taxes for military use, a refusal which would have involved not only young men but (and mainly) older men and women holders, of property."

"As we know only too well, the League of Nations, lacking Russia and the United States, was not sufficiently inclusive. Also when the pinch came, different governments proved unready to make the sacrifices or face the risks involved in effective opposition to imperialism in Japan, reaction in Spain, fascism in Italy or nazism in Germany."

"There has been personal refusal of war service on grounds of conscience on a large scale and at great personal cost by thousands of young men called up for military service. While many people fail to understand and certainly do not approve their position, I believe that it has been an invaluable witness to the supremacy of conscience over all other considerations and a very great service to a public too much affected by the conception that might makes right."

"Fear weakens the nerves and distorts the judgment. It is not by fear that mankind must exorcise the demon of destruction and cruelty, but by motives more reasonable, more humane and more heroic."

"It is to me surprising that the repudiation of the entire theory and practice of conscription has not found expression in a wider and more powerful movement drawing strength from the widespread concern for individual liberty. We are horrified at many slighter infringements of individual freedom, far less terrible than this. But we are so accustomed to conscription that we take it for granted."

"In such a world all war would be civil war and we must hope that it will grow increasingly inconceivable. It has already become capable of such unlimited destruction and such fearful possibilities of uncontrollable and little understood "chain reactions" of all sorts that it would seem that no one not literally insane could decide to start an atomic war."

"I believe so deeply that the way of war is not the way of Christianity"