Money and Government Quotes

“It is true that Keynes’s ‘model’ was a short-run model, but that’s not because he was interested only in short-run stabilization. He wanted a full employment level of investment in the short-run, so as to get to the long-run quicker.”
― Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics

“Economists whose common sense had not been completely destroyed by their theories rejected the drastic cure of destroying the existing economy in order to rebuild it in the correct proportions.”
― Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics

“Unlike the quantity theory of money, which is a ‘supply of money’ story, the credit theory of money is a ‘demand for loans’ tale. The amount of money fluctuates with the demand for loans and the creditworthiness of borrowers; and both fluctuate with the state of business.”
― Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics

“Modern developments have eased the intensity of the ancient struggle between creditors and debtors. Stock markets and limited liability have provided an alternative to bank borrowing for raising capital, and the penalties for default have been progressively relaxed. We no longer demand labour services of defaulting debtors, or send them to prison. Debt-bondage is a shadow of its old self.”
― Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics

“The state has only a limited incentive to guarantee the value of money. The reason is that it can always produce the money necessary to defray its expenses, either by debasing the coinage when money is metal or by printing more of it when it is paper.”
― Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics

“Even when state money became paper, and therefore intrinsically worthless, it was thought desirable to maintain belief that government notes – promises to pay the bearer – were in fact debt certificates backed by gold. Until 1971, the value of the American dollar was widely believed to depend on its convertibility into gold, as though the value of gold guaranteed the value of paper dollars.”
― Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: A Challenge to Mainstream Economics

“The root of credit is the Latin word credo, ‘I believe”
― Robert Skidelsky, Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics