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In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It is the narrowest decisions that are most ardently debated.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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John Kenneth Galbraith
Age: 97 †
Born: 1908
Born: October 15
Died: 2006
Died: April 29
Diplomat
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Politician
University Teacher
John K. Galbraith
Every
Policy
Narrowest
Good
Economic
Ardently
Decision
Debated
Courses
Usual
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Almost
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Though
Choice
More quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith
Of late I have searched diligently to discover the advantages of age, and there is, I have concluded, only one. It is that lovely women treat your approaches with understanding rather than with disdain.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The seminar in economic theory conducted by Hayek at the L.S.E. in the 1930s was attended, it came to seem, by all of the economists of my generation - Nicky Kaldor , Thomas Balogh, L. K. Jah, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, the list could be indefinitely extended. The urge to participate (and correct Hayek) was ruthlessly competitive.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Private enterprise did not get us atomic energy.
John Kenneth Galbraith
There is little that can be said about most economic goods. A toothbrush does little but clean teeth. Aspirin does little but dull pain. Alcohol is important mostly for making people more or less drunk ... There being so little to be said, much is to be invented.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The Senate has unlimited debate in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process.
John Kenneth Galbraith
In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence.
John Kenneth Galbraith
In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading a syndicate that was driving the market down.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.
John Kenneth Galbraith
There was something superficial in attributing anything so awful as the Great Depression to anything so insubstantial as speculation in common stocks.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Albert Speer, Walther Frank, Julius Streicher and Robert Ley did pass under my inspectionand interrogation in 1945 but they only proved that National Socialism was a gangster interlude at a rather low order of mental capacity and with a surprisingly high incidence of alcoholism.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The questions that are beyond the reach of economics-the beauty, dignity, pleasure and durability of life-may be inconvenient but they are important.
John Kenneth Galbraith
It is not the individual's right to buy that is being protected. Rather, it is the seller's right to manage the individual.
John Kenneth Galbraith
There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.
John Kenneth Galbraith
One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read.
John Kenneth Galbraith
You will find that [the] State [Department] is the kind of organisation which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly too.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have a right to be persuaded. However, they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The years of the Great Depression were a superb time for economists because people not knowing what could be done or what should be done would always assume that maybe an economist had the answer. If you were just a lawyer in Washington, you were nobody. But if you were an economist, you might have the answer.
John Kenneth Galbraith
