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Under The Gold Standard America Had No Major Financial Panics Other Than In 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1907, 1930, 1931, 1932, And 1933.
-Paul Krugman
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Under The Gold Standard

Paul Krugman
...
Under The Gold Standard America Had No Major Financial Panics Other Than In 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1907, 1930, 1931, 1932, And 1933.

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This quote by Paul Krugman reflects deeply on the theme of money. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Money, America, Gold, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

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Money
America
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Most People, I Suspect, Still Have In Their Minds An Image Of America As The Great Land Of College Education, Unique In The Extent To Which Higher Learning Is Offered To The Population At Large. That Image Used To Correspond To Reality. But These Days Young Americans Are Considerably Less Likely Than Young People In Many Other Countries To Graduate From College. In Fact, We Have A College Graduation Rate That's Slightly Below The Average Across All Advanced Economies.
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Toxic
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Climate
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Offering
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Evil
Equity
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Foxholes
Libertarian
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Our Country
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Action
Coming Up With A Good Idea, With An Insight Into The Way The World Works That Is Really New And That You Really Believe In, Is A Deeply Satisfying Experience.
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Ideas
World
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Believe
Class
America
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Enough
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A Message To Progressives: By All Means, Hang Senator Joe Lieberman In Effigy.
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Messages
Senators
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Two
Office
This Is A Serious Analysis Of A Ridiculous Subject, Which Is Of Course The Opposite Of What Is Usual In Economics.
Opposites
Usual
Analysis
Bad Ideas Flourish Because They Are In The Interest Of Powerful Groups.
Powerful
Ideas
Groups
People Who Are Complaining About The Fed Are People Who've Been Predicting Runaway Inflation For Five And Six Years, And It Hasn't Happened.
Years
People
Complaining
Asset Bubbles Have Happened Even Without Not-so-easy Money. And, In A Depressed Economy, Where Alternative Uses Of Money Are Not Great, People Are Going To Bid Up The Prices Of Profitable Corporations And Stuff Like That.
People
Alternatives
Use
I Don't Want A Job In The Administration; I Think I'm More Effective Carping From The Sidelines.
Jobs
Thinking
Want
It Should Be Possible To Emphasize To Students That The Level Of Employment Is A Macroeconomic Issue, Depending In The Short Run On Aggregate Demand And Depending In The Long Run On The Natural Rate Of Unemployment, With Microeconomic Policies Like Tariffs Having Little Net Effect. Trade Policy Should Be Debated In Terms Of Its Impact On Efficiency, Not In Terms Of Phoney Numbers About Jobs Created Or Lost.
Running
Jobs
Philosophy
When Depression Economics Prevails, The Usual Rules Of Economic Policy No Longer Apply: Virtue Becomes Vice, Caution Is Risky And Prudence Is Folly.
Vices
Usual
Virtue
What Our Economy Needs Is Direct Job Creation By The Government And Mortgage-debt Relief For Stressed Consumers. What It Very Much Does Not Need Is A Transfer Of Billions Of Dollars To Corporations That Have No Intention Of Hiring Anyone Except More Lobbyists.
Jobs
Government
Stressed
...academic Credentials Are Neither A Necessary Nor A Sufficient Condition For Having Your Ideas Taken Seriously. If A Famous Professor Repeatedly Says Stupid Things, Then Tries To Claim He Never Said Them, There's No Rule Against Calling Him A Mendacious Idiot - And No Special Qualifications Required To Make That Pronouncement Other Than Doing Your Own Homework.conversely, If Someone Without Formal Credentials Consistently Makes Trenchant, Insightful Observations, He Or She Has Earned The Right To Be Taken Seriously, Regardless Of Background.
Stupid
Taken
Ideas
Unsustainable Situations Usually Go On Longer Than Most Economists Think Possible. But They Always End, And When They Do, It's Often Painful.
Thinking
Goes On
Painful
The Economics Profession Went Astray Because Economists, As A Group, Mistook Beauty, Clad In Impressive-looking Mathematics, For Truth.
Groups
Economics
Mathematics
...instead It Seems That Business - Like Weight Loss - Is A Subject Wherein Hope And Fear Inspire Limitless Gullibility.
Fear
Loss
Inspire
The Party Of Ideas Has Become The Party Of Beavis And Butthead.
Party
Ideas
Beavis
If You Want To Understand Opposition To Climate Action, Follow The Money.
Climate Action
Want
Global Warming
Politics Determines Who Has The Power, Not Who Has The Truth.
Political
Determine
Consumer Spending Is Now Plunging At Serious-recession Rate ... Even If The Rescue Now In Train Succeeds In Unfreezing Credit Markets, The Real Economy Has Immense Downward Momentum. In Addition To Financial Rescues, We Need Major Stimulus Programs.
Real
Needs
Momentum
But Where Will The Fed Find Another Bubble?
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Are You, Or Is Someone You Know, A Gadget Freak? If So, You Doubtless Know That Wednesday Was Iphone 5 Day, The Day Apple Unveiled Its Latest Way For People To Avoid Actually Speaking To Or Even Looking At Whoever They're With.
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Technology
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By Rescuing The Financial System Without Reforming It, Washington Has Done Nothing To Protect Us From A New Crisis, And, In Fact, Has Made Another Crisis More Likely.
Done
Facts
Financial
The Important Thing To Understand Is That The Case For Pollution Control Isn't Based On Some Kind Of Aesthetic Distaste For Industrial Society. Pollution Does Real, Measurable Damage, Especially To Human Health.
Real
Pollution Control
Important
The Raw Fact Is That Every Successful Example Of Economic Development This Past Century ... Has Taken Place Via Globalization.
Business
Taken
Successful
We Should Try To Create The Society Each Of Us Would Want If We Didn't Know In Advance Who We'd Be.
Trying
Want
Should
It's A Funny Thing, By The Way, How People Who Love Free Markets Are Also Quite Sure That They Know That Investors Are Being Irrational.
Funny Things
People
Way
The Obama Campaign Seems Dangerously Close To Becoming A Cult Of Personality.
Cult Of Personality
Campaigns
Becoming
So, Very Early Reports Are That Obamacare Exchanges Are, As Expected, Having Some Technical Glitches On The First Day - Maybe Even A Bit Worse Than Expected, Because It Appears That Volume Has Been Much Bigger Than Predicted. Here’s What You Need To Know: This Is Good, Not Bad, News For The Program... Lots Of People Logging On And Signing Up On The Very First Day... Is An Early Indication That It’s Going To Be Fine, That Plenty Of People Will Sign Up For The First Year Of Health Reform.
Years
Obamacare
People
As An Economics Professor I Am By Nature Inclined To The View That The Truth Isn't Out There, It's In Here - That Usually You Learn A Lot More By Thinking Really Hard About The Data Than You Do By Sniffing Around For Supposedly Inside Information.
Truth
Thinking
Views
Europe Is Often Held Up As A Cautionary Tale, A Demonstration That If You Try To Make The Economy Less Brutal, To Take Better Care Of Your Fellow Citizens When They're Down On Their Luck, You End Up Killing Economic Progress. But What European Experience Actually Demonstrates Is The Opposite: Social Justice And Progress Can Go Hand In Hand.
Hands
Europe
Opposites
What Happened After 9/11 - And I Think Even People On The Right Know This, Whether They Admit It Or Not - Was Deeply Shameful. The Atrocity Should Have Been A Unifying Event, But Instead It Became A Wedge Issue. Fake Heroes Like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, And, Yes, George W. Bush Raced To Cash In On The Horror. And Then The Attack Was Used To Justify An Unrelated War The Neocons Wanted To Fight, For All The Wrong Reasons....the Memory Of 9/11 Has Been Irrevocably Poisoned; It Has Become An Occasion For Shame. And In Its Heart, The Nation Knows It.
Memories
War
Hero
So What Are The Effects Of Increasing Minimum Wages? Any Econ 101 Student Can Tell You The Answer: The Higher Wage Reduces The Quantity Of Labor Demanded, And Hence Leads To Unemployment.
Unemployment
Wages
Minimum Wage
The Fact Is That The Two Years Or So After 9/11 Were A Terrible Time In America – A Time Of Political Exploitation And Intimidation, Culminating In The Deliberate Misleading Of The Nation Into The Invasion Of Iraq. It’s Probably Worth Pointing Out That I’m Not Saying Anything Now That I Wasn’t Saying In Real Time Back Then, When Bush Had A Sky-high Approval Rating And Any Criticism Was Denounced As Treason. And There’s Nothing I’ve Done In My Life Of Which I’m More Proud.
Real
Approval Rating
Years
If You're Doing Your Job Right, Some Substantial Group Of People [is] Going To Be Mad At You.
Jobs
People
Mad
[i]n America, At Least, We Have A Pretty Good Record For Behaving In A Fiscally Responsible Fashion, With One Exception - Namely, The Fiscal Irresponsibility That Prevails When, And Only When, Hard-line Conservatives Are In Power.
Fashion
America
Records
If You Want A Simple Model For Predicting The Unemployment Rate In The United States Over The Next Few Years, Here It Is: It Will Be What Greenspan Wants It To Be, Plus Or Minus A Random Error Reflecting The Fact That He Is Not Quite God.
Simple
Errors
Years
The Problem With Digital Books Is That You Can Always Find What You Are Looking For But You Need To Go To A Bookstore To Find What You Weren't Looking For.
Book
Needs
Digital
Wealthy Americans Who Benefit Hugely From A System Rigged In Their Favor React With Hysteria To Anyone Who Points Out Just How Rigged The System Is.
Hysteria
Benefits
Favors
However, The Fact That An Economist Offers A Theoretical Analysis Does Not And Should Not Automatically Command Respect. What Is Needed Is Some Assurance That The Analysis Is Actually Relevant.
Doe
Analysis
Facts
[i]f One Asks What Substantive Contributions [f. A. Hayek] Made To Our Understanding Of How The World Works, One Is Left At Something Of A Loss. Were It Not For His Politics, He Would Be Virtually Forgotten.
Loss
Understanding
Would Be
We Have A Lot Of Evidence On What Happens When You Raise The Minimum Wage. And The Evidence Is Overwhelmingly Positive: Hiking The Minimum Wage Has Little Or No Adverse Effect On Employment While Significantly Increasing Workers' Earnings.
Hiking
Adverse Effects
Political
In Short, It's A Great Economy If You're A High-level Corporate Executive Or Someone Who Owns A Lot Of Stock. For Most Other Americans, Economic Growth Is A Spectator Sport.
Sports
Growth
Levels
Until The Great Depression, Most Economists Clung To A Vision Of Capitalism As A Perfect Or Nearly Perfect System. That Vision Wasn’t Sustainable In The Face Of Mass Unemployment, But As Memories Of The Depression Faded, Economists Fell Back In Love With The Old, Idealized Vision Of An Economy In Which Rational Individuals Interact In Perfect Markets.
Memories
Perfect
Vision
I Admit It: I Had Fun Watching Right-wingers Go Wild As Health Reform Finally Became Law.
Fun
Law
Reform
Surely I'm Not The Only Person To Ask The Obvious Question: How Different, Really, Is Mr. Madoff's Tale From The Story Of The Investment Industry As A Whole?
Different
Stories
Scandal
The Habit Of Disguising Ideology As Expertise Has Created A Deficit Of Legitimacy.
Habit
Legitimacy
Deficit
In Short, What The Living Wage Is Really About Is Not Living Standards, Or Even Economics, But Morality. Its Advocates Are Basically Opposed To The Idea That Wages Are A Market Price-determined By Supply And Demand, The Same As The Price Of Apples Or Coal. And It Is For That Reason, Rather Than The Practical Details, That The Broader Political Movement Of Which The Demand For A Living Wage Is The Leading Edge Is Ultimately Doomed To Failure: For The Amorality Of The Market Economy Is Part Of Its Essence, And Cannot Be Legislated Away.
Essence
Ideas
Apples
Raising The Minimum Wage And Lowering The Barriers To Union Organization Would Carry A Trade-off - Higher Unemployment. A Better Idea Is To Have The Government Subsidize Low-wage Employment. The Earned-income Tax Credit For Low-income Workers - Which Has Been The Object Of Proposed Cuts By Both President Clinton And Congressional Republicans - Has Been A Positive Step In This Direction.
Philosophy
Cutting
Government
The Planet Will Continue To Cook.
Global Warming
Planets
Cooks
I Believe In A Relatively Equal Society, Supported By Institutions That Limit Extremes Of Wealth And Poverty. I Believe In Democracy, Civil Liberties, And The Rule Of Law. That Makes Me A Liberal, And I’m Proud Of It.
Believe
Law
Political
On The Political As On The Economic Front It's Important Not To Fall Into The "not As Bad As" Trap. High Unemployment Isn't O.k. Just Because It Hasn't Hit 1933 Levels; Ominous Political Trends Shouldn’t Be Dismissed Just Because There’s No Hitler In Sight.
Fall
Sight
Political
We Know That Advanced Economies With Stable Governments That Borrow In Their Own Currency Are Capable Of Running Up Very High Levels Of Debt Without Crisis.
Running
Government
Debt
There's One Thing That The Fed Has Been Really Good At Cracking Down On, And That's Inflation.
Feds
Inflation
Has Beens
Governments Do Not Necessarily Act In The National Interest, Especially When Making Detailed Microeconomic Interventions. Instead, They Are Influenced By Interest Group Pressures. The Kinds Of Interventions That New Trade Theory Suggests Can Raise National Income Will Typically Raise The Welfare Of Small, Fortunate Groups By Large Amounts, While Imposing Costs On Larger, More Diffuse Groups.
Philosophy
Government
Political
I Think If You're A Liberal, You Believe That We All Are, At Least To Some Extent, Our Brothers' Keepers, You Really Believe That We Have A Sumptuary Responsibility To Make Sure That Life Is Decent For Everybody In America, That You Believe That Society Out To Be Broadly Shared, And You Believe That You Can't Have A Real Democracy Unless You Have A Little Bit, At Least, Of Economic Democracy.
Brother
Real
Believe
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