Adam Davidson Quotes
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Perhaps concentrated wealth will inspire a nation of innovative problem-solvers. But if the view of many economists is right - that it sometimes discourages innovation - then we should worry.
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The American dream always meant that anybody willing to put in a hard day's work could make a decent living. That's just not true anymore for people without at least some post-high school education.
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What we want as an economy is companies and people, you know, working hard to come up with creative ways to be more productive. We don't want companies and people working hard to lobby government for special tax cuts.
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Most rich countries have reported increases in happiness as they become richer.
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'Reinventing the Bazaar,' by John McMillan, is a great and fun introduction to the wild variety and importance of markets throughout history and around the world. I finally understood how a Middle Eastern souk actually works economically and how to compare that to modern-day telecom-spectrum auctions. I love that book.
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Hating Wall Street is an American tradition that dates back even to the days when Thomas Jefferson cursed that money lover Alexander Hamilton. And for centuries, the complaints about it have largely stayed the same: 'It does nothing! It creates chaos! It's a parasite that sucks hardworking Americans dry!'
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The cardinal rule of taxation is that whatever you put a levy on, you'll inevitably get less of. Taxing corporate activity means less investing, less hiring, fewer jobs and a smaller economy, which hurts the rich, the poor and the middle class alike.
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To put it simply and a bit crudely: Our economy is demanding more well-educated workers than our schools are providing. To attract this scarce resource, communities have to offer more than just jobs.
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There is such a polarized discussion of economics among people like analysts, columnists, bloggers; often, they end up just saying that views other than their own should not even be discussed. I find that frustrating. There is no intellectual progress without considering lots and lots of different views.
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When you see a merger between two giants in a declining industry, it can look like the financial version of a couple having a baby to save a marriage.
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If an alien with an accounting degree touched down in America, it might conclude that we're a weird cult that spends 11 months living frugally and four crazy weeks buying tons of stuff we don't need. It wouldn't be entirely wrong, either.
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The world I want to live in is a world where everybody is a bit more uncertain about their arguments and is a bit more open to other people's arguments. I think that we can engage ideas without ad hominem attacks.
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'The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement in Iraq,' by Hanna Batatu. Few may wish to take on this massive, obscure work, but it changed my life, and I love it.
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Much of what we consider the American way of life is rooted in the period of remarkably broad, shared economic growth, from around 1900 to about 1978.
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Happiness statistics may be most valuable in smaller, local discussions. Understanding how different sorts of programs affect the well-being of citizens would be enormously helpful to a mayor choosing between building a new bridge or offering a tax cut.
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We tend in this country to talk about Democrats and Republicans, and think there's little group over there called Independents that's maybe 2%. That is not the case, and it has not been the case for most of modern American history.
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Holiday binge-buying has deep roots in American culture: department stores have been associating turkey gluttony with its spending equivalent since they began sponsoring Thanksgiving Day parades in the early 20th century.
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The so-called skills gap is really a gap in education, and that affects all of us.
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If the American government can't stand behind the dollar, the world's benchmark currency, then the global financial system will very likely enter a new era in which there is much less trade and much less economic growth. It would be, by most accounts, the largest self-imposed financial disaster in history.
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Economics is all about consumption. People either spend money now or they use financial instruments - like bonds, stocks and savings accounts - so they can spend more later.
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In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.
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We can fight over what the taxation levels should be, but the tax system should be very, very simple and not distortionary.
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Unlike physics, economists don't settle things. There seems to be plenty of room for different conclusions that are still accepted in the academy.
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One of the great political and economic challenges of our time is figuring out the balance between wealth that benefits society and wealth that distorts.