Economic Incentives Quotes

If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it

One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians' answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government. ... [H]aving someone else pay for medical care virtually guarantees that a lot more of it will be used. Nothing would lower costs more than having each patient pay those costs. And nothing is less likely to happen.

If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.

We need to repeal and replace Dodd-Frank. We need to make America fair again for all businesses, but especially those being run by small business owners.

… markets don't look after social needs. Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention and I wouldn't under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs.

American envoys came to see me before the crisis in Iraq and asked me to say that there were nuclear weapons in Iraq. I refused. They even told me that things would go well for Belarus in terms of investments, etc. All I had to do was to support them. I told them that I couldn't do it because I knew that there were no nuclear weapons there.

The friends of humanity cannot but wish that in all countries the laboring classes should have a taste for comforts and enjoyments, and that they should be stimulated by all legal means to procure them. There cannot be a better security against a superabundant population.

War is a racket.... The only way to stop it is by conscription of capital before conscription of the nation's manhood.... Let the officers and directors of our armament factories, our gun builders and munitions makers and shipbuilders all be conscripted—to get $30 a month, the same wage paid to our lads in the trenches. Give capital 30 days to think it over and you will learn by that time there will be no war. That will stop the racket—that, and nothing else.

If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more of it.

We made a mistake. We paid the farmers not to grow poppies. So all the other farmers started planting poppies. If we didn’t pay them, they had the poppies [to sell.]

Communism can't survive the captivating allure of capitalism.

We must not have an economy that discourages and chases away investors from investing in South Africa.

You can invest as much as you want in infrastructure and education. But in the end people have to be allowed to make a profit from their work.

Both humanity's capacity to innovate and the incentives to innovate are greater today than at any other time in history.

You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth - and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.

If you're trying to understand why it is that certain things happen in Sacramento and certain things don't, at the end of the day, it comes down to the issue of incentives: We do what we're incentivized to do.

Our forefathers showed much wisdom in selecting silver, of the two metals, out of which to make the unit…. In considering which of these two metals they would thus favor by making it the unit, they were led to adopt silver because it was the most reliable. It was the most favored as money by the people. It was scattered among all the people. Men having a design to injure business by making money scarce, could not easily get hold of all the silver and hide it away, as they could gold. This was the principal reason that led them to the conclusion to select silver, the more stable of the two metals, upon which to fix the unit. It was so much handled by the people and preferred by them, that it was called the people's money.

If workmen become scarce, the manufacturer gives higher wages, but at first requires an encrease of labour; and this is willingly submitted to by the artisan, who can now eat and drink better, to compensate his additional toil and fatigue.

It is certainly for the public good to keep all the banks competitors for our favors by a judicious distribution of them and thus to engage the individuals who belong to them in support of the reformed order of things or at least in an acquiescence under it.

We don't pay miners not to mine, and we shouldn't pay farmers not to farm.

I'm no enthusiast for the Coase Theorem. I don't like it, but it's widely used.

Unlike China's growth story, which has been built on the strategy of creating excess supply, the Indian growth story has been built on the strategy of responding to incentives generated by excess demand. Which is why a certain degree of inflation is built into the Indian growth process.