Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Economists love to talk about incentives, but the bottom line is that people hate being controlled or manipulated, even when done through voluntary institutions. This is one of the most important tensions in capitalism. "

Related Quotes:

" I think people who are not rich can be extremely happy. And I think the chances to be happy in this new world - with many more opportunities to be creative, to be online, to educate yourself - there'll be a lot more chances to be happy. It's not to say everyone will take them, but there will be a lot of new paths to opportunity. "

Tyler Cowen

Opportunity

Happy

Yourself

" I'm not a vegetarian. But I think people who are vegetarians, they are actually more virtuous than the rest of us. I think they should be admired. "

Tyler Cowen

Rest

People

" We will be returning to historical levels of inequality. We'll view post-war America as a kind of strange interlude not to be repeated. It won't be the dreams that we all had that virtually all incomes go up in lockstep at three percent a year. It hurts to give that up. "

" Economics evolved as a more moral and more egalitarian approach to policy than prevailed in its surrounding milieu. Let's cherish and extend that heritage. The real contributions of economics to human welfare might turn out to be very different from what most people - even most economists - expect. "

" Vietnamese food has probably been saved from the mass market because most people never master the sauces and condiments that must be added to the food, at the table, for its glories to become apparent. It's too much trouble, and a lot of people don't like asking for help, especially if the interaction involves some linguistic awkwardness. "

" What the banking system needs is creditors who monitor risk and cut their exposure when that risk is too high. Unlike regulators, creditors and counterparties know the details of a deal and have their own money on the line. "

" A bad or mediocre meal is more than just an unpleasant taste, it is an unnecessary negation of one of life's pleasures - a wasted chance to refine our palates, learn about the world, and share a rewarding experience. "

" France has not only built a bureaucratic barrier against American culture, it has constructed a notorious intellectual case against it as well. The French spend hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing film production, extend interest-free loans to designated filmmakers, and have placed quotas not only on imports but on television time. "

" The 'low' quality of many American films, and of much American popular culture, induces many art lovers to support cultural protectionism. Few people wish to see the cultural diversity of the world disappear under a wave of American market dominance. "

" There's so much free material on the Internet you can learn from, and some people are pure self-starters: they pick up computers and teach themselves everything. Certainly there are millions of people like that. But at the same time, I think it's a pretty small percentage of the population. "

" If we want to improve American food and make it much cheaper, we should deregulate the food trucks and the other street vendors, provided they meet certain sanitation standards. Many cities have already moved down this path, and people are not keeling over with salmonella. "

" I think a lot of people will be liberated from a lot of oppressive manufacturing jobs, or a lot of service jobs, because they'll be done by computers. There'll be the world's best education available online and free. "

" Often, economists spend their energies squabbling with one another, but arguably the more important contrast is between our broadly liberal economic worldview and the various alternatives - common around the globe - that postulate natural hierarchies of religion, ethnicity, caste and gender, often enforced by law and strict custom. "

" Economics is sometimes associated with the study and defense of selfishness and material inequality, but it has an egalitarian and civil libertarian core that should be celebrated. "

" To get anything done, Obama has to be seen as having winning economy - which isn't easy. "

" Look at electricity in human history - it took a few decades for electricity to really revolutionize the American economy. And the Internet will be the same. At some point in the future, we will arrive at a new era of low-hanging fruit. "

" When you look at the actual data on technological innovation, one thing you see is that what I call the 'low-hanging fruit' has been exhausted. So radio, flush toilets, electricity, and automobiles - a lot of very basic inventions - have spread to almost all households. "

" The way to make the world a better place, through your eating, is simply to eat a bit less meat. Local is sometimes good, sometimes bad. But even when it's good, its environmental impact is relatively small compared to other possible improvements. "

" We're seeing an enormous amount of global upward mobility that's quite rapid and quite sudden, and undiscovered individuals have a chance - using the Internet, using computers - to prove themselves very quickly. So I think the mobility story will be a quite complicated one. "

" I don't really watch TV. "

Tyler Cowen

Watch

Really

" For the very top earners, vision and inspiration are essential. You need those to become the next Steve Jobs, but perhaps not to be the highest paid dentist in Beverly Hills. "

" A lot of local food is very tasty. I'm very happy to eat it. I just don't think it's the same thing as saving the world. "

" Most of us are not pure self-starters; most people need role models, they need coaches, they need exemplars, they maybe need some discipline or some rewards. We need to be motivated. "

" In the early stages of negotiation software, on your smartphone, there may be programs that listen to the pitch of a voice, or that test for stress. You'll just ask the program, 'Was he lying? Was he eager to do business with me?' Maybe the computer will be right sixty per cent of the time. "

Tyler Cowen

Business

Voice

" Real cultural diversity results from the interchange of ideas, products, and influences, not from the insular development of a single national style. "

" I sometimes say I am a 'happiness optimist' but a 'revenue pessimist.' "

" At least in the United States, most economic resentment is not directed toward billionaires or high-roller financiers - not even corrupt ones. It's directed at the guy down the hall who got a bigger raise. It's directed at the husband of your wife's sister, because he earns 20 percent more than you do. "

" I see three forces militating in favor of growing inequality: increasing measurement of worker value added, automation through smart software, and globalization. "

" In most of the world, breakfast is an important meal. "

" I think as individuals, people overrate the virtues of local food. Most of the energy consumption in our food system is not caused by transportation. Sometimes local food is more energy efficient. But often it's not. The strongest case for locavorism is to eat less that's flown on planes, and not to worry about boats. "