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" 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

" There's so much disagreement about investing, and it's because nobody really knows. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure. "

Robert J. Shiller

" When valuation confidence falls, it means that stock markets are perceived as overpriced. "

Robert J. Shiller

" In a perfect world, people don't have to move to another country to get a higher wage. Ultimately, they need only be able to participate in producing output that is sold internationally. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Fear causes individuals to restrain their spending and firms to withhold investments; as a result, the economy weakens, confirming their fear and leading them to restrain spending further. The downturn deepens, and a vicious circle of despair takes hold. "

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

" 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

" The desperately poor may accept handouts, because they feel they have to. For those who consider themselves at least middle class, however, anything that smacks of a handout is not desired. Instead, they want their economic power back. "

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" Diversify, because that helps reduce risk. And you can diversify outside the United States. Some people would never invest in Europe - I think that's a mistake. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Trump does magic. Maybe it will be black magic sometime, but he's an amazing phenomenon. "

Robert J. Shiller

" Trump has never been clear and consistent about what he will do as president. "

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

" 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

" Since the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009, criticism of the economics profession has intensified. The failure of all but a few professional economists to forecast the episode - the aftereffects of which still linger - has led many to question whether the economics profession contributes anything significant to society. "

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

" 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

" Critics of 'economic sciences' sometimes refer to the development of a 'pseudoscience' of economics, arguing that it uses the trappings of science, like dense mathematics, but only for show. "

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

" The future is always coming up with surprises for us, and the best way to insulate yourself from these surprises is to diversify. "

Robert J. Shiller

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

Robert J. Shiller