Money is what fueled the industrial society. But in the informational society, the fuel, the power, is knowledge. One has now come to see a new class structure divided by those who have information and those who must function out of ignorance. This new class has its power not from money, not from land, but from knowledge.
John Kenneth GalbraithThe contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations... But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.
John Kenneth GalbraithBy all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.
John Kenneth GalbraithAll crises have involved debt that, in one fashion or another, has become dangerously out of scale in relation to the underlying means of payment.
John Kenneth GalbraithIt's much easier to point out the problem than it is to say just how it should be solved.
John Kenneth GalbraithFew people at the beginning of the nineteenth century needed an adman to tell them what they wanted.
John Kenneth GalbraithMore investment trusts securities were offered in September of 1929 even than in August - the total was above $600 million. However, the nearly simultaneous promotion of Shenandoah and Blue Ridge was to stand as the pinnacle of new era finance. It is difficult not to marvel at the imagination which was implicit in this gargantuan insanity. If there must be madness something may be said for having it on a heroic scale.
John Kenneth Galbraith