Quote

I've been writing a book called The Economics of Innocent Fraud. I published part of it already in The Progressive (Free Market Fraud, January 1999). But I've been interrupted these last few months. It deals with all of the things we do, in an innocent way, to cover up the truth.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Last
Innocent
Free
Economics
Truth
Market
Interrupted
Part
Months
January
Book
Deals
Published
Already
Fraud
Writing
Called
Progressive
Way
Lasts
Cover
Things

More quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

Image
I accept the global complex and global trade more than do some of my liberal colleagues because I consider this a wise alternative to national tension and conflict.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
There can be no question, however, that prolonged commitment to mathematical exercises in economics can be damaging. It leads to the atrophy of judgement and intuition. . .
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design . . . The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
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
Image
The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence when originality is taken to be a mark of instability and when, in minor modification of the original parable, the bland lead the bland.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Power is as power does.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Men will look back in amusement at the pretence that once caused people to refer to General Dynamics and North American Aviation and AT&T as private business.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Ideas do not respect national frontiers, and this is especially so where language and other traditions are in common.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
The happiest time of anyone's life is just after the first divorce.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
In the world of minor lunacy the behaviour of both the utterly rational and the totally insane seems equally odd.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
What was needed was a policy that increased the supply of money available for use and then ensured its use. Then the state of trade would have to improve.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Who is king in the world of the blind when there isn't even a one eyed man?
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to trickle down economics).
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
The urge to consume is fathered by the value system which emphasizes the ability of the society to produce.
John Kenneth Galbraith