#economic

When the solution to a given problem doesn’t lay right before our eyes, it is easy to assume that no solution exists. But history has shown again and again that such assumptions are wrong. This is not to say the world is perfect. Nor that all progress is always good. Even widespread societal gains inevitably produce losses for some people. That’s why the economist Joseph Schumpeter referred to capitalism as “creative destruction.” But humankind has a great capacity for finding technological solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and this will likely be the case for global warming. It isn’t that the problem isn’t potentially large. It’s just that human ingenuity—when given proper incentives—is bound to be larger. Even more encouraging, technological fixes are often far simpler, and therefore cheaper, than the doomsayers could have imagined. Indeed, in the final chapter of this book we’ll meet a band of renegade engineers who have developed not one but three global-warming fixes, any of which could be bought for less than the annual sales tally of all the Thoroughbred horses at Keeneland auction house in Kentucky. ↗

— Steven D. Levitt

#incentives #imagination

Recent evidence confirms that retail prices of essential consumer goods in poor countries are not appreciably lower than in the United States or Western Europe. In fact, with deregulation and "free trade", the cost of living in many Third World cities is now higher than in the United States. My experience in Latin America and Haiti is that the prices of meat, fish and fresh vegetables are about the same as in the United States. Can you imagine eating on less than one dollar a day? ↗

— Vincent A. Gallagher

#globalization #injustice #poverty #experience

Broke is a relative term, like sister, cousin, or Uncle Sam.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#america #broke #broken #cousin #debt

And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#economics #justice #economy

If we all make systematic mistakes in our decisions, then why not develop new strategies, tools, and methods to help us make better decisions and improve our overall well-being? That's exactly the meaning of free lunches- the idea that there are tools, methods, and policies that can help all of us make better decisions and as a consequence achieve what we desire-pg. 241 ↗

— Dan Ariely

#educational #inspirational #education

Cities are, first of all, seats of the highest economic division of labor. ↗

— Georg Simmel

#division #economic #first #first of all #highest

The world's problem is not too many people, but lack of political and economic freedom. ↗

— Julian Lincoln Simon

#economic freedom #freedom #lack #many #people

My top most priority is to deal with India's massive social and economic problems, so that chronic poverty, ignorance and disease can be conquered in a reasonably short period of time. ↗

— Manmohan Singh

#conquered #deal #disease #economic #economic problems

Advertising as the printed form of selling would seem... ultimately to be justified in so far as it serves as a means of increasing legitimate human wants, as an agency of fair and economic competition in the distribution of goods, and as a stimulant to social progress. ↗

— Daniel Starch

#agency #competition #distribution #economic #fair

Last Thursday, our Supreme Court backed that local governments can co-opt private property, and give it to another private entity, for economic development. ↗

— Cliff Stearns

#backed #court #development #economic #economic development