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" I didn't vote for Trump. So we've got him. Let's hope for the best. He might do something good. "

Robert J. Shiller

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" One thing I've noticed about history - you can search on newspapers going back hundreds of years, search for 'economic forecast,' you don't find it. It would be very rare to find it. "

Robert J. Shiller

" One should have a wide variety of assets in one's portfolio. And oil, by the way, is a particularly important asset to have in one's portfolio because we need it, and the economy thrives on it. "

Robert J. Shiller

" My very first publication was an estimator - this was a statistical procedure - a kind of invention. My father got a patent and started a business; it wasn't successful, but maybe I have some of him in me. "

Robert J. Shiller

" People who stay unemployed for a long time start to look like damaged goods, and they don't get such good offers. Also, they're not learning anything. Most learning is on-the-job learning. "

Robert J. Shiller

" I often tend to think that things are not what they seem. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Somehow, talking to young students brings you back to reality - it should, anyway. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Fifty years ago or a hundred years ago, generally, most people would buy a house the way you buy a car. When you buy a car, do you think, 'I better buy this year rather than next year because car prices might go up?' "

Robert J. Shiller

" Even today, I am easily distracted by reading material and will pick up articles on virtually any factual material if I have the time. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Some of the best theorizing comes after collecting data because then you become aware of another reality. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Oppression thrives on distance - on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed. "

Robert J. Shiller

" As a child, I was fascinated by any branch of physical or biological science. Even today, I find great excitement in discovering the complexity and variability of the world we live in, getting a glimpse into the deeper reality that we mostly ignore in our everyday human activities. "

Robert J. Shiller

" This is the paradox of thrift: belt-tightening causes people to lose their jobs, because other people are not buying what they produce, so their debt burden rises rather than falls. "

Robert J. Shiller

" If I was counselling an individual, and my purpose was to help that individual, the most important thing would be that you should save more. Because don't expect that your retirement will follow those trajectories that some advisers are telling you. "

Robert J. Shiller

" As far as I can find, almost no one in the profession - not even luminaries like John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, or Irving Fisher - made public statements anticipating the Great Depression. "

Robert J. Shiller

" I think that a lot of people in all walks of life have the impression, of course, that, 'I specialize in something. I can't - I don't have the time to read other things. I'll just go to pure entertainment when I'm relaxing, and then I'll come back to my pure specialty.' That produces - that attitude produces idiot savants, unfortunately. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Housing traditionally is not viewed as a great investment. It takes maintenance; it depreciates. It goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there's technical progress in housing. So, new ones are better. So, why was it considered an investment? That was a fad. "

Robert J. Shiller

" People might just decide, 'Yeah, I'll diversify my portfolio. I'll live in a rental.' That is a very sensible thing for many people to do. "

Robert J. Shiller

" What would be better, that people build big houses thinking that they'll make capital gains or that they send their children to medical school and they do research on curing diseases? When you put it that way, it seems obvious. There has developed a sense of personal worth that's tied to one's house. "

Robert J. Shiller

" If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme. "

Robert J. Shiller

" All taxes, except a 'lump-sum tax,' introduce distortions in the economy. But no government can impose a lump-sum tax - the same amount for everyone regardless of their income or expenditures - because it would fall heaviest on those with less income, and it would grind the poor, who might be unable to pay it at all. "

Robert J. Shiller

" When I see the Trump supporters on television explaining themselves, I don't get a feeling of supreme confidence. They've created a revolution, and now maybe they're a little scared by it. "

Robert J. Shiller

" That's the world we live in: when it comes to economics, people have emotions; it's not like chemistry or physics. "

Robert J. Shiller

" This is an anxiety driven world - the whole world is driven by anxiety. It is anxiety about the aftermath of the global financial crisis; it's anxiety about inequality and about computers replacing jobs. "

Robert J. Shiller

" We judge economics by what it can produce. As such, economics is rather more like engineering than physics: more practical than spiritual. "

Robert J. Shiller

" In a bubble, eventually people start saying, 'Wait a minute... these prices are way too high! What is anyone buying anymore? What could they possibly be thinking?' And then there's a correction and a bursting. "

Robert J. Shiller

" We don't know the probabilities of future events. Still, you have to take action, and so you do it on gut feeling. That's the world we live in. "

Robert J. Shiller

" People aren't as impressed by homes anymore after they saw how they collapsed in price with the financial crisis. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Speculative markets have always been vulnerable to illusion. But seeing the folly in markets provides no clear advantage in forecasting outcomes, because changes in the force of the illusion are difficult to predict. "

Robert J. Shiller

" I think we do need to try to not just rely on the central bank to, in its wisdom, adjust interest rates, but allow for people to avoid being exposed to inflation risk. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Yes, horoscopes still persist in popular newspapers, but they are there only for the severely scientifically challenged, or for entertainment; the idea that the stars determine our fate has lost all intellectual currency. "

Robert J. Shiller