"A society is a cooperative venture for the mutual advantage of its members."

Nicholas Barr Economics See all quotes by Nicholas Barr →

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“Markets can be efficient or inefficient; so can governments. thus market failure is a counterpoint to government failure.”

“Money income is a flawed measure of individual welfare.”

“Thus social insurance, in sharp contrast with actuarial insurance, can cover not only risk but also uncertainty.”

“Perfect competition must hold in product and factor markets, and also in capital markets. The assumption has two essential features: economic agents must be price takers; and they must have equal power.”

“It is argued that regulators are frequently captured by those whom they are supposed to regulate.”

“The European Commission uses an explicit relative poverty line of 60 per cent of national average income.”

Resonant Thoughts

"In the face of the idea that truth might afford the opposite of satisfaction and turn out to be completely shocking to humanity at any given historical moment, … the fathers of pragmatism made the sat…"

— Max Horkheimer

Philosophy1895–1973

#Human Nature

"There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself."

— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Science1786–1845

#Human Nature

"Please don’t think that after the awakening of Kundalini all human problems will be automatically solved. The universe is so complicated and human nature so deep that to the last day man will continue…"

— Gopi Krishna (yogi)

Education1903–1984

#Human Nature

"Members of Congress routinely vote on tax bills that they have never read, much less understood even on a superficial level. Sanford J. Schlesinger... says that "there hasn't been a member of Congress…"

— David Cay Johnston

Economics1948

#wisdom