The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process.
John Kenneth GalbraithWe have a swarm of people in the stock market - not out of knowledge, not out of expectation, but out of basically a gambling instinct, the hope that prices will go up.
John Kenneth GalbraithIn all modern depressions, recessions, or growth-correction, as variously they are called, we never miss the goods that are not produced. We miss only the opportunities for the labour - for the jobs - that are not provided.
John Kenneth GalbraithIn the old days, land was important as the giver of all things. That period is gone now. Technology and brainpower are all that matters and yet conflicts over land, specially one like on the India-China border, that yields nothing, continue. This is a burden of ancient history that we continue to carry. If tomorrow there is settlement on planet Mars, we will begin to worry if others are interested.
John Kenneth GalbraithFaced with having to change our views or prove that there is no need to do so, most of us immediately get busy on the proof.
John Kenneth GalbraithLet’s begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion. The approved reference now is to the market system. This shift minimizes - indeed, deletes - the role of wealth in the economic and social system. And it sheds the adverse connotation going back to Marx. Instead of the owners of capital or their attendants in control, we have the admirably impersonal role of market forces. It would be hard to think of a change in terminology more in the interest of those to whom money accords power. They have now a functional anonymity.
John Kenneth Galbraith