“Gold, unlike all other commodities, is a currency…and the major thrust in the demand for gold is not for jewelry.”

Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.

I have long argued that paying down the national debt is beneficial for the economy.

Productivity is notoriously difficult to predict.

The economy is turning, and credit comes in with a lag, .. To the extent that a number of small firms are finding it difficult to get the credit they need at a price they can afford, that’s likely to change for the better.

Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it’s pretty clear that it’s an unsustainable underlying pattern.

If we allow terrorism to undermine our freedom of action, we could reverse at least part of the palpable gains achieved by postwar globalization. It is incumbent upon us not to allow that to happen.

Crony capitalism is essentially a condition in which… public officials are giving favours to people in the private sector in payment of political favours.

There is no evidence that the business cycle has been repealed.

While local economies may experience significant price imbalances, a national severe price distortion seems most unlikely in the United States, given its size and diversity.

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake.

I love to play tennis and golf, listen to music, watch baseball and root for the Redskins.

It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum.

The arts develop skills and habits of mind that are important for workers in the new economy of ideas.

Institutions of the newer participants in global finance had not been tested, until recently…recent crisis have underscored certain financial structure vulnerabilities that are not readily assuaged in the short run.

Even though some down payments are borrowed, it would take a large, and historically most unusual, fall in home prices to wipe out a significant part of home equity.

And the percentage changes in wage rates would be the same for all job grades.

Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them.

If the demand for home commodities should be diminished, because of the fall of rent on the part of the landlords, it will be increased in a far greater degree by the increased opulence of the commercial classes.

Neither machines, nor the commodities made by them, rise in real value, but all commodities made by machines fall, and fall in proportion to their durability.

The exchangeable value of all commodities rises as the difficulties of their production increase.

Any commodity that sees its price going higher will see new mines opening up.

No extension of foreign trade will immediately increase the amount of value in a country, although it will very powerfully contribute to increase the mass of commodities and therefore the sum of enjoyments.

But a rise in the wages of labour would not equally affect commodities produced with machinery quickly consumed, and commodities produced with machinery slowly consumed.

Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.