Kasinomics

Quotes

All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure. — Mark Twain

An economist is like an alchemist, but less messy. — Terry Pratchett, Making Money, p. 245

Banking is a game, and it’s an old game called ‘What can I get away with?’ — Terry Pratchett, Making Money, p. 136

Economist: ‘The golems are capable of doing the work per day of one hundred and twenty thousand men.’
Politician: ‘Think of what they could do for the city.’
Economist: ‘To begin with, they would put one hundred and twenty thousand men out of work. They do not require food, clothing or shelter. The demand for many things woupld drop. Circulation is everything. The money goes around creating wealth as it does so.’
Politician: ‘Then what course of actions do you propose?’
Economist: ‘I did not know that I had to find solutions as well.’ — Terry Pratchett, Making Money, p.286

How does banking work? You take rich people’s money and lend it to suitabe people at an interest, and give as little as possible of the interest back. What is a suitable person? Someone who can prove they don’t need the money, so not poor people.
— Terry Pratchett, Making Money, p. 53

I fear that I must not expect a very favorable reception for this work. It speaks mainly of four sets of person and I am much afraid that [none] will altogether like what is said of them. — Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street

Should something dreadful be prevented from falling into the wrong hands be rather given to the goverment? In some people’s experience, a prime definition of the ‘wrong hands’ was ‘the goverment’. — Terry Pratchett, Making Money,p. 344

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. — John Maynard Keynes

The pages were full of Vox Pops - which meant people in the street who didn’t know anything told other people what they knew - and lengthy articles by people who also didn’t know anything but could say it very elegantly in 250 words. — Terry Pratchett, Making Money, p.308

What is a coin compared to the hand that holds it? That’s worth! That’s value! — Terry Pratchett, Making Money, p. 342