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Quotes from Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went — John Kenneth Galbraith

1908–2006 Canada

← All quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

19 quotes

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Economic life, as always, is a matrix in which result becomes cause and cause becomes result.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

A constant in the history of money is that every remedy is reliably a source of new abuse.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

If all else fails immortality can always be assured by adequate error.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

There is wonder and a certain wicked pleasure in these giddy ascents and terrible falls, especially as they happen to other people.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Foresight is an imperfect thing — all prevision in economics is imperfect.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Why is anything intrinsically so valueless so obviously desirable?

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Truth has anciently been called the first casualty of war. Money may, in fact, have priority.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

With the American failure came world failure.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

The foresight of financial experts was, as so often, a poor guide to the future.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

There was something superficial in attributing anything so awful as the Great Depression to anything so insubstantial as speculation in common stocks.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Seaboard Air Line, which was thought by numerous innocents to provide a foothold in aviation, was another favorite, although, in fact, it was a railroad.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

In dealing with Mr. Nixon, it is not easy to be unfair. He invites and justifies all available criticism.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Nothing is more portable than rich people and their money

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

What was needed was a policy that increased the supply of money available for use and then ensured its use. Then the state of trade would have to improve.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Those who yearn for the end of capitalism should pray for government by men who believe that all positive action is inimical to what they call thoughtfully the fundamental principles of free enterprise.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

In numerous years following the war the Federal government ran a heavy surplus. It could not pay off it's debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

The pioneering instrument of reform was the Bank of England. Of all institutions concerned with economics none has for so long enjoyed such prestige. It is, in all respects, to money as St. Peter's is to Faith.

Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Kenneth Galbraith (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.