... the inherent conflict and disconnect between campaigning (promising people all that they can have) and governing (explaining to people why they won’t get it).
One cannot legislate problems out of existence. It has been tried.
People should absolutely have a point of view about the political process themselves individually, but we're also at a point in the evolution of capitalism where any one individual's impacts are over estimated because there is enough regulation and guard rails. They may be odious and grotesque in what they say, but the practical day-to-day impacts from a policy perspective tend to be limited because the system made it so. That's why you see a lot of political apathy because people have internalized the inability for anyone either really really good or really really bad to do anything.
All I can do is advocate changes at the BBC while respecting editorial independence upon which the success of the BBC rests. I can't do anything that requires the BBC to pay certain people certain amounts.
A government can do only what is feasible given the political and economic context.
No organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. .. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions.
To say that a state cannot pursue its aims because there is no money, is like saying that an engineer cannot build roads, because there are no kilometers.
Unfortunately, these past few years, you can work hard, try to be as successful as possible, follow the rules, and President Barack Obama will do everything he can to stand in your way.
Yet it ought to be clear that a minimum wage law is, at best, a limited weapon for combatting the evil of low wages, and that the possible good to be achieved by such a law can exceed the possible harm only in proportion as its aims are mode.
No politician has a 50-year horizon.
I believe that every president wants to give everyone work but they can't; they want everyone to eat but they can't make it happen. The same happens with education. So we have to ask ourselves, "Why can't we do anything?"
It takes courage to set priorities because doing so is an admission that American policy cannot be all things to all people - or rather to all interest groups
I'd like the campaigning to be about all the things they're not going to do. Just tell me what you're not going do! Don't tell me what you're going to do. Just say "I'd really like to do solar energy but I'm not going to be able to. I really want to dig holes everywhere in the country but I really won't be able to do it because people seem to think that maybe my water will be screwed up."
I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.
Monetary policy suffers from the unfortunate absence of any occult effect. It has long been clear that economic management...would be greatly facilitated if resort could occasionally be had to witchcraft.
To think that land reform is going to somehow automatically create an equitable system, I think that's just wrong. It's a very technical view of the world.
Monetary policy should never have been expected to shift economies to a sustainably higher growth trajectory by itself.
Monetary policy itself cannot sensibly be directed at reducing imbalances.
We don't have time to wait for President Bush to change his mind. How many breakthroughs have been missed as a result of this policy?
We are a coalition government, and that limits our options in some ways. Privatization happens to be one such area.
No immigration scheme, no matter how generous, will satisfy the number of applicants for admission.
It is not in our interest to sign economic policy agreements with the IMF, as that unnecessarily limits the room to manoeuvre of... the Hungarian government, Hungarian parliament and lawmakers.
Politicians throughout history have tried to solve every problem conceivable to man, always failing to recognize that many of the problems we face result from previous so-called political solutions. Government cannot be the answer to every human ill. Continuing to view more government as the solution to problems will only make matters worse.
At best, in such depression times, monetary policy is a feeble reed on which to lean.
We should be humble about our ability to stimulate the economy with monetary policy.
