Finance Quotes

Thomas Paine has the most entries, followed by Paul Krugman, Bernie Sanders, David Graeber and Paul Samuelson. The sourced lines are scattered. Joseph Conrad, in Victory (1915), calls finance a mysterious world in which, incredible as it may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation. John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848) is here for a passage on how the state should treat the criminal poor. Asimov’s 1950 novel is the source of the line that economics is on the side of humanity now.

The one flagged entry is “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable,” credited to John Kenneth Galbraith and marked misattributed.

Random quote on Finance

Most quoted on finance:

The greatest grift in contemporary economic life is the neoliberal idea that the only purpose of the corporation and the only responsibility of executives is to enrich themselves and shareholders. The new economics must and can insist that the purpose of the corporation is to improve the welfare of all stakeholders: customers, workers, community and shareholders alike.

Nick Hanauer

If you provide a basic income, you send a powerful message: nobody wants to just sit there and do nothing, we trust you to find a valuable occupation. The idea of morality of work is one of the most insidious tools in the hands of power, and increases the bullshit jobs phenomenon.

David Graeber

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Henry Hazlitt Economics in One Lesson (1946)

Economism is the view that the economy is the most important part of society and that the other dimensions such as politics and education should serve it. Economism has become the ruling ideology, not because of claims of economists, but because of the decisions of political leaders, financiers, corporate leaders, and the general public.

John B. Cobb Spiritual Bankruptcy: A Prophetic Call to Action (2010)

Economics is a subject that really relates to core aspects of human well-being, and there’s a methodology for thinking about these things. This was a very appealing combination to me. Market systems are capable of massive breakdowns that can result in long, devastating periods of high unemployment. And I felt that economists had really learned something about how to address that.

Janet Yellen The Hand on the Lever (2014)