Monetary policy suffers from the unfortunate absence of any occult effect. It has long been clear that economic management...would be greatly facilitated if resort could occasionally be had to witchcraft.

There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.

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.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

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. If the world is lucky enough to enjoy peace, it may even one day make the discovery, to the horror of doctrinaire free-enterprisers and doctrinaire planners alike, that what is called capitalism and what is called socialism are both capable of working quite well.

I predict, not because I know, but because I'm asked.

The attraction of power we take for granted in politics.. But in economics...the thrust...is for pecuniary return, for money. And I have always felt that denies in the economic world a very large part of the motivation.