The Economists' Hour Quotes

“But economics has roughly the same relationship with its founding texts as the world’s other great religions.”
― Binyamin Appelbaum, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society

“Capitalism is a competition; money is the prize”
― Binyamin Appelbaum, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society

“Indeed, a basic theme in his public policy prescriptions was that governments operated in darkness, and that the appropriate response to most problems was to do very little, and to do it slowly and steadily.”
― Binyamin Appelbaum, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society

“Keynes’s letter was an attack on this faith in markets. In his view, no invisible hand ensured markets automatically would deliver the best possible outcomes. Businesses uncertain about the future would refrain from investing; people would remain unemployed. The government, he said, needed to borrow and spend until “animal spirits” were revived.3”
― Binyamin Appelbaum, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society

“This was not mere hyperbole. Paul Volcker recounts asking William Sharpe, a Nobel laureate in economics for his contributions to the rise of finance, just how much all these innovations were adding to economic growth. “Nothing,” Sharpe replied. He explained that in his view, derivatives merely allowed some people to take money from other people. But, he added, “it’s a lot of fun.”
― Binyamin Appelbaum, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society

“The economic historian Barry Eichengreen notes that movie villains continued to demand payment in dollars. So did a wide range of international businesses. It was a network effect, much like Facebook: everyone used the dollar because everyone used the dollar.”
― Binyamin Appelbaum, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society