The failure of the roman system to furnish decent minimal standards for the mass of people was a fundamental cause of instability, both political and economic.
— H.J. HaskellIf you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.
— John Maynard KeynesThis is the basis for the most important critique of microfinance. The poor are not entrepreneurs. The idea that more than a few will turn tiny loans into a viable business is simply unrealistic.
— Ian SmillieIn the same way that central banking nearly wrecked the world and created one calamity after another, bitcoin can save the world one transaction at a time.It is time for a new beginning.
— Jeffrey TuckerBut it must be observed that as the depreciation of money proceeds, the demand for money (I.E. For the kind of money in question) gradually begins to fall. When loss of wealth is suffered in proportion to the length of time money is kept on hand, endeavours are made to reduce cash holdings as much as possible. N ow if every individual, even if his circumstances are otherwise unchanged, no longer wishes to maintain his cash holding at the same level as before the beginning of the inflation, the demand for money in the whole community, which can only be the sum of the individuals' demands, decreases too. There is also the additional fact that as commerce gradually-begins to use foreign money and actual gold in place of notes, individuals begin to hold part of their reserves in foreign money and in gold and no longer in notes.
— Ludwig von MisesA guidance counselor who has made a fetish of security, or who has unwittingly surrendered his thinking to economic determinism, may steer a youth away from his dream of becoming a poet, an artist, a musician or any other of thousands of things, because it offers no security, it does not pay well, there are no vacancies, it has no 'future'.
— Henry M. WristonFor when the Law of Price declares that a good actually commands a particular price, and explains why it does so, it of course implies that the good is able to command this price, and explains why it is able to do so. The Law of Price comprehends the Law of Exchange-Value.
— Ludwig von MisesFrom this failure to expunge the microeconomic foundations of neoclassical economics from post-Great Depression theory arose the 'microfoundations of macroeconomics' debate, which ultimately led to a model in which the economy is viewed as a single utility-maximizing individual blessed with perfect knowledge of the future.Fortunately, behavioral economics provides the beginnings of an alternative vision of how individuals operate in a market environment, while multi-agent modelling and network theory give us foundations for understanding group dynamics in a complex society. These approaches explicitly emphasize what neoclassical economics has evaded: that aggregation of heterogeneous individuals results in emergent properties of the group, which cannot be reduced to the behavior of any 'representative individual.' These approaches should replace neoclassical microeconomics completely.
— Steve KeenOur aim was not to create profit, but jobs,' Sanchez Gordillo explained to me. This philosophy runs directly counter to the late-capitalist emphasis on 'efficiency' - a word which as been elevated to almost holy status in the neoliberal lexicon, but in reality has become a shameful euphemism for the sacrifice of human dignity at the altar of share prices.
— Dan HancoxThe working class had imposed upon them a sterile and authoritarian educational system which mirrored the ethos of the corporate workplace.
— Anthony M. Platt