(Useful) Quotations and sayings:
‘Economics is not a body of concrete truth, but an engine for the discovery of concrete truth’ Alfred Marshall (a great Victorian economist)
When the US sneezes, Canada catches cold
‘We have magneto [alternator] trouble’ John Maynard Keynes
“Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil” Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
“There is no free lunch” popularized by Milton Friedman
"The risk is that at some point your fiscal policy loses credibility in the eyes of investors. Then, very quickly, you will find yourself in a debt spiral of rising rates, widening deficits, crumbling credibility and yet more rising rates" Niall Ferguson
"Once an independent central bank...invokes inflation as a policy, it becomes very difficult to eliminate"
The aim of positive economics is (in words of Milton Friedman) "to provide a system of generalisations that can be used to make correct predictions about the consequences of any change in circumstances"
"If you empty your purse into your head, no man can take it away from you. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest" Benjamin Franklin
(Kofi Annan, United Nations)
