Actually, in my advanced, high-falutin' frontier economics, I often work with what I define as 'money metric utility,' and I ask people, 'Do you really want that? What are you willing to pay for that?'
Money are very difficult to think about. So, we think about money as the opportunity cost of money. So, we at some point went to a Toyota dealership and we asked people, what will you not be able to do in the future if you bought this Toyota?
Good economics is good politics.
My role in the White House was grossly exaggerated by the press. Fortunately for the American people, when the president had to make a critical economic decision or a decision on a weapons system, he did not turn to me and say, 'Hamilton, what in the hell do I do?'
High tax rates distort economic decision making, and our corporate income tax rate is one of the highest in the world.
There isn’t that much that Washington can do to effect the economy.
We cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or political economy to college professors.
I would say it's more important who the treasury secretary is than who the vice president is. If you want to have a debate here, I'd like a debate between potential treasury secretaries than the vice presidential debate.
It's true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.
I walked away from Kyoto because it would damage America's economy, you bet. It would have destroyed our economy. It was a lousy deal for the American economy. I felt there was a better way.
It doesn't make sense to have a bitumen export economy.
Economic policy and decision making do not function in a political vacuum.
I've argued with the senators and congressmen I've talked to. You don't want to be too little too late. If you buy them at the right price, you may be buying two trillion of face value.
An important instrument of economic policy-making in a market economy is credible, consistent, and timely communication.
This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals.
Tax policy is not about compassion.
From an emotional standpoint it's very easy to say don't raise taxes, and no one wants to raise taxes.
So just as I want pilots on the planes that I fly, when it comes to monetary policy, I want to think that there is someone with sound judgement at the controls.
Do we pour $40 billion into grandiose Louisiana engineering projects or do we instead put up no trespassing- signs in the areas below sea level? All are hard choices with various merits and pains. The important thing, however, is for America to decide whether the current policy of inaction is really the way we want to deal with the worst natural disaster in our history.
It's insane to try to balance the budget.
Now the truth is, a president really can't control the economy, although his policies do have some effect on it.
And as a matter of fact, governments don't act, governments only react. The bankers make the decisions, and then governments decide how are we going to adjust to this. Government can't do anything unless the bank gives them the money to do it.
The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space-each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.
Making economic policy isn't a popularity contest, especially when financial markets are in a panic.
Fiscal policy is not just, or even not even principally, the purview of the president.
